


Natasha Romanoff and the Secrets of Death

by Meriadek



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-05-15 02:24:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 80,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19286188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meriadek/pseuds/Meriadek
Summary: Parallel universe time travel? Natasha Romanoff has done it. Killed lots and lots of people? Done it. Been killed herself? Done it. But meeting Death himself and being introduced to a universe where it isn't alien invasions but baby's who stop dark lords? Now that's a new one. And who is she to refuse when Death hands her an orphan whose being hunted by terrorists? Simply put, she might need little Harry as much as he needs her.





	1. Chapter 1

Dyslexia: Language disability, here be spelling mistakes, missing words, and grammar issues.

Crossover Disclaimer: Marvel's Black Widow into the Potterverse. Natasha mother figure. The Wizarding World has never met anyone quite like this genetically modified assassin. I own neither.

AN: I know, I know, I have a lot of fics to finish, but until I finish grad school, a month from now, I'm just trying to keep my head above water. So please enjoy the product of my over-stressed muses.

* * *

Prologue - When Two Deaths Meet

It started as any cross-dimensional meeting started, with a death. Or in this case the eve of three deaths, and one who thought the destination of souls was more guideline than a rule.

"I can see it all," the Death with knobbly fingers and a contempt for wizards.

"Why did they have to discover time travel?" the Death with a scythe and a contempt for Avengers asked. She put a skeletal hand to her hooded temple. "They're giving me a headache."

"Rewriting the future," he growled, "Escaping death." He made a rude sound.

"As if anyone can just play with fate," she agreed.

They each drank from a goblet whose liquid was known as the Kiss of Death that could kill any mortal, semi or otherwise.

"So, what's your latest?"

The Death with the penchant for reaping the souls of aliens sighed, "Nothing much, just people dying Before they are supposed to. How about you?"

"These kids keep trying to save their grandparents, but that's only recently. For years I've had a mad man who proclaims himself to be the 'Flight of Death' as if he could ever outrun me."

Death laughed, her voice sultry, "Silly name, sounds more like what I would call a killing spree."

The other Death sighed, "That's what he does mainly. He also got it into his head to kill a baby, which of course, enabled the prophecy he was trying to prevent."

She made a gagging noise, "Why do they believe in those damn prophets? It isn't as if they provide any useful information. No matter what they do, it fulfils the prophecy or it wasn't a 'true' prophecy."

"Humans, always thinking the can play God."

They both drank.

Then Death got an idea, that is the Death who has the most experience with perpetually dying mutants. "What if we tried?"

"Excuse me?"

"What if we meddled? We have the power to do so."

The other Death who dealt primarily with mortals and the odd dragon said, "Because there are rules."

"Rules are made to be broken."

He took another swallow from his drink, "This could go badly."

Death smiled, "Tell me more about this baby?"

* * *

Chapter 1 - The Secrets of Death

Some part of Natasha had believed death wouldn't hurt, but of course, it did hurt, because why should death be any different than life?

She landed on her back, on a carpeted floor. She turned her head to see a woman with long red hair, lying beside her.

Her emerald eyes stared right through Natasha, unseeing were the eyes of the dead.

Sitting up, Natasha found that none of the injuries that had killed her remained. All her equipment remained with her but for her technology, such as her coms and her guns. She found that she was in a room on the second floor, where a bomb had apparently gone off.

"Mama?" a small plaintive voice called.

She spun to find a baby in a crib. He must have been a year or so old because he was standing, his green eyes told her that the 'Mama' he was calling to was beyond helping.

"I'm sorry, little one," she said softly, to the child with a fresh lightning bolt scar.

"Take him," a voice said from behind her.

She pivoted to face that voice, blade drawn, "Who the hell are you?"

The figure floated above the hole, seeming to blend into the blackened wood. "I am Death."

"Great, how did I get here?"

"You were brought here for him."

"Why?"

"He has no one, and because you messed with the time stream. Did you think that wouldn't have consequences?"

"This child doesn't need an assassin."

"On the contrary, a Dark Lord seeks his death."

She felt the child reach for her braid, and call again, "Mama?"

Natasha looked down at the woman on the floor, "What if I say no?"

"Then the child will be given to people who will lock him in a closet, near starve him, and work him as a servant. He will be murdered before he graduates from school."

"And you think I can prevent this?" she asked.

Death said nothing.

Natasha turned to the child, who reached both arms upward to be picked up.

Someone downstairs ran into the house shouting, "James! James! Oh, Merlin, no, James… Lily! Lily are you here!? Harry! Harry?"

Natasha jolted when she felt the wraith whispered in her ear, "I would run if I were you."

Death's breath smelled like the wintry winds on the top of mountain peaks.

The child, who she assumed must be 'Harry' wrapped his arms around her neck as she reached for him. In that moment, that little boy laid claim to Natasha's heart.

She was out the window with the baby and escaping down the street before the man reached the top step.

* * *

Death and Death floated shoulder to shoulder watching the spec that was Natasha Romanoff with baby Harry Potter disappear into the night.

They chatted idly, invisible to mortal gaze, as Sirius Black barged into the room, falling to his knees beside the body of Lily Potter.

"No, Lily," he murmured, staggering to his feet, he pulled himself up to look into the crib, the empty crib.

"Harry!?" He shouted, panic clear in his voice, "Harry!"

"Perhaps, we changed too much," Death said out of mortal hearing.

"Or not enough," the other Death said, shouldering her scythe, then brought her hands together in one resounding clap.

Lily Potter took in a gasping breath, sitting up and coughing.

Sirius Black nearly jumped out of his skin. "Lily!?" he exclaimed, "Lily? You're alive, but you…"

Death turned to his alternate universe counterpart, "That wasn't a part of the plan!"

The woman shook her head, her orange flame hair spilling over her shoulders, "Harry…" she said thickly, "Where's Harry?"

Sirius shook his head, "He's not here, Lils." He held out his hand to help her to feet.

Heavy footfalls thundered up the steps.

"James!?" Sirius cried out in disbelief.

Death turned to his scythed friend, "What do you think you're doing?"

James Potter embraced his wife, and asked, "Where's Harry?"

Death smiled. "Playing God," she said wickedly.

* * *

Natasha found this world was not hers, beyond going back in time to the eighties, no one she knew existed. Months had passed and she hadn't found anything of the people she had once known. The major event seemed to hold, like the great wars, but it was all slightly off, slightly different.

Steve Rodger and the Starks, did not exist.

So she had decided that the name Natalia belonged to her birth world, belonged to Clint and his children who called her Auntie Nat. Natasha Alianovna Romanoff, and since she didn't know Harry's middle name or surname, she gave him hers, Harry Nathaniel Romanoff.

"Mama!" Harry demanded from his highchair.

Natasha shook off her thoughts, and opened the applesauce, "Say please," she chided.

"Peasseeeeeeee," the toddler dragged out.

She sat in the chair beside him, placing the cup down on the table. He reached for the spoon with his small hand, and she gave him an expected look.

"Tank you," he said, and she handed him the soft-edged spoon.

"You're welcome," she said, kissing his temple.

She had never thought she would be good at this but… Harry was pretty good at telling her what he wanted, when he was hungry he asked for food, when he was sleepy he slept, when he wanted to play he would tug on her hand and ask, "Magi?"

She was still trying to figure out what 'Magi' meant, so far she had interpreted it as sock puppets, toy cars, and blocks. This seemed to appease him, though she always had this suspicion that she was disappointing him.

"Mama?" Harry asked, "Why you sad?"

She smiled at him, "I'm not sad, Harry, I have you."

He smiled at her and repeated, "I have you."

A part of her sighed at his cuteness, with his dark raven hair and big green eyes he would be a knock out when he was older.

Which worked in her favour because though they looked nothing alike but for the paleness of their skin and their green eyes, people still tended to believe that beautiful people were related to one another.

She sighed, they had lived in this apartment for awhile now and she was growing restless. This wasn't a home, this was a disguise. Perhaps she should save up and go find a country home, maybe move back to the United States. But a large part of her wanted to return to Russia. She wouldn't risk it, of course, but as none of the people she had known existed in this world, perhaps she hadn't either. Perhaps the KGB didn't have her on their radar.

What would it be like to be just another citizen? Even a tourist? To walk the city streets talking in her mother tongue in full view of cameras and not worry?

Harry finished his applesauce and asked, "More?" pause. "Pease?"

Just then she heard people approaching their apartment door.

She had Harry out of his height chair before he could say another word, "Can you be quiet for me, Harry?" she asked, holding a finger to her lips.

He held his finger to his lips and said, "Shhhhhh."

Yeah, babies weren't the best at secret agent work.

The door banged open with a flash of light.

_What the hell?_

She put Harry in the bathtub, knowing there wasn't enough time to run. Making one last sign to be quiet, she shut the door, and re-entered the main room to greet their 'guests.'

Three cloaked figures stood in the room, the two men wore masks, the crazy-eyed woman did not.

"Where's lil-Potty?" the woman crooned.

Natasha cocked her hip, "Black cloaks and masks," she taunted, ignoring the woman's question, "Are you terrorists or going to a Halloween rave?"

The woman smiled, "Oh, my dear putrid muggle, you will beg for death."

Natasha smiled back, "You think so?"

"Enough of this," one of the others said, and pointed a stick at her, "Avada Kedavra."

Natasha rolled out of the way of a green streak that missed her, and yet, did no damage to the floor.

_Looks like I've found the aliens._

Grabbing a chair, Natasha wielded it like a baseball bat, running at the intruders. She hit the woman first, who went down with a shriek, then Natasha jerked the chair up and hit the man who had attacked with the stick. He grunted falling to the ground with an oomph.

 _They went down easy,_  she thought.  _Human it is then._

Standing on the chair whose legs rested on the woman's abdomen, she kicked the second masked man in the head with a roundhouse. There was that sharp crack of bone breaking, and he dropped like a rock.

"Don't you people have any training?" she asked, almost certain she had broken the man's neck, she hadn't felt any resistance from the muscle that protected most thugs from dropping from a single blow.

"Avada Ka-"

Natasha kicked the stick out of the shorter man's hand.

He pulled up his mask, revealing himself to just be a young kid, "Please, lady, I don't want to die."

She jabbed him in the face with the heel of her palm, and this time he stayed down.

Knocking the chair off the woman, Natasha grabbed her by her collar, "Who are you? And what do you want with my son?"

The woman looked at her like a bird of prey and said in a sing-song voice, "You killed my husband, you killed my husband."

Natasha slammed the crazy woman against the wall, "Who are you?"

She smiled, even as blood coloured her mouth, "Bellatrix Lestrange," then paused and whispered in a low voice, "Bellatrix Black."

In a swift motion, Natasha caught the woman's rising hand and snapped her wrist. She caught the stick before it fell and put it in her back pocket. The woman screamed but it pittered off into a laugh.

God, she needed to get a gun.

The woman laughed again.

"What are you?" Natasha asked.

The woman's laughter continued, high and cackling, then said in a foreboding tone, "A witch."

Natasha caught the look she shot behind her, and without thinking, pulled the stick from her back pocket and said the magic words.

"Avada Kedavra."

A cloaked form that had been coming up the stairs fell backwards when the streak of green light hit him, his lifeless body tumbling down the stairs.

A tingling sensation went through Natasha's body.

When she turned back to 'Bellatrix Black' her brown hooded eyes had gone wide.

Natasha jabbed the stick against her throat, "Tell me what you want from Harry."

"His death," Bellatrix said absently.

"Why?" Natasha ground out, twisting Bellatrix's arm until it was at the verge of popping out of its socket. "Why do you want him dead?" she repeated.

She shook her head, her dark hair tumbling around her, "I serve the Dark Lord, and he will return. I will not betray my Master."

Inpatient, Natasha used the side of her hand to drop the woman.

Repocketing the magical gun that could kill people without damaging objects or making sound, just creating a charge of green light, she went back to the bathroom to get Harry.

Their bags were already packed, and she thanked herself for that particular habit. Resting Harry on the bed, she pulled on her backpack, and shouldered Harry's bag. Grabbing his stroller on her way out the door, Harry asked as Natasha stepped over the downed bodies, "Who dat?"

"Witches, apparently," Natasha answered, "Now how would you like to go to Gothenburg for a few weeks? I hear it's lovely this time of year."

The toddler nodded seriously and spent the next ten minutes trying to pronounce the word 'lovely' correctly.

Natasha admitted to herself that not only could she not have a normal life, neither could Harry. She would teach Harry all she knew so he could protect himself, and she would keep them moving, never in the same place for too long.

No one would be able to find them again. No one.

* * *

AN: And that is my latest concerned bunny. Comments, thoughts, reactions, and hopes, please?


	2. Is This a Joke?

AN: Thank you to the reviewers! Ha, crossovers are popular.

* * *

 Chapter 2 - Is this a Joke?

Lily Potter, the Auror, slammed a stack of files done on her husband's desk. "Nothing," she growled.

James Potter, an Auror as well, held in a sigh. Sitting forward, he caught his wife's hand, "Lily-Flower, it's been thirteen years, if he-"

"Someone opened his letter!" she snapped ripping back her hand, "He's out there, he has to be."

"Lily, that was three years ago. Three years ago after nothing. No one has seen-"

"If you had just let us go to India-"

"And what could they have possibly told us?" James said slowly, "The Indian Aurors did their investigation, and they said-"

"I don't care what they said, James, they aren't us!"

"Not everyone in Indian speaks English, and not everyone would want to have helped us, besides, like the Indian Aurors said, no one could pick out Caucasian tourists from Caucasian tourists."

"Maybe there were pictures-"

"Lily!" he exclaimed, "His Hogwarts letter was addressed, Harry J. Potter, 109 Bus, Mumbai to Pune."

"Records, tickets," she argued.

He sighed, "We've been over this, over and over this. Everyone who bought tickets for that bus used cash, no one needed to show their IDs, and it was an entire bus of tourists. The driver couldn't distinguish anyone-"

"Except for one beautiful redhead," she finished for him, "but if he noticed that then maybe-"

Sirius Black, also an Auror, choose that moment to save him, opening his office door with a jubilant smile, "Hey Mr. and Mrs. we need to get going or we will be late for dinner with the Longbottoms, and they, unlike you both, are sane enough to clock out at the end of their work day."

"That's because they have someone to go home to," Lily snapped at him.

Sirius winced, his blue-grey eyes instantly shadowing with sorrow and guilt.

James hated when Lily got like this, yes, she was almost always obsessed with finding Harry, if not in the front her head, say when they were given a difficult assignment, then in the back of her head. She never forgot and never let herself give up on the chance that he might be out there in the world. But Lily didn't always let her grief and anger spill out onto other people. Not always, but today was one of the bad ones.

"We could have had more kids," James ventured softly.

She spun on him, and the look in her emerald eyes could only be described as fury, "I have a son, I just need to find him."

And with that she stormed out of the room, Sirius stepped out of her way, and she slammed the door behind her.

Sirius gave James a miserable look, "I'm so sor-"

"Don't," James said, holding up a hand, "Just don't." He took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, "It doesn't even matter whose fault it is anymore, I just want… I just want to-" He couldn't complete the thought, because it was a betrayal of sorts, betrayal to his son and his wife.

But what James wanted was to move on. He wanted to live, and he wanted to see his wife happy again. Yes, of course, he wanted to find Harry, but James was almost certain he was dead. The letter from Hogwarts to India, even Dumbledore admitted, must have been a fluke.

"Come on," Sirius said, "Neville's at school, so Frank and Alice won't-"

"Won't make Lily insanely jealous and ever more determined to find Harry?" James offered. Neville and Harry had been born within a week of each other. He stood, straightening the papers he had been working on and ignoring the fruitless research Lily had put on his desk.

They must have tried every tracking spell that had ever existed, and every compass led them in every direction. The United States, Sweden, Russia, France, the Netherlands, Morocco, Tunisia, China, Greece, Brazil, and so on. Lily had even gotten Snape to use a Dark Arts tracking spell, that one had led them to Dublin then to Norway then to Japan, at which point Snivellus apologized, saying that it must not be functioning.

James was starting to believe his son's magic had taken up residence with the wind, and that's why none of their spells worked.

Because with all the magic that lit up to track him, it should have been more than hope that he was alive.

But thirteen years was a long time.

It was enough that James sometimes wished they had just stayed dead. This uncertainty… well, he couldn't really call what he, Lily, and even Sirius had was much of a life.

They were all good Aurors at least, it was the one thing they all had to fall back on, even if their personal lives were a disaster, at least they could do some good for the community.

* * *

"Hey Granger!" Draco called over the heads of students, "Do you ever brush your hair? Or are you trying to be Ravenclaws' new mascot, so you need to look the part, like some wild animal."

"Hey Malfoy!" Padma Patil, Hermione Granger's best friend, shouted back, "Does your mommy still brush yours? Or haven't you moved passed your father needing to wipe your butt?"

Draco flushed, and would have made a comeback, but the dinner crowd bottlenecked into the Great Hall.

Hermione, head of her year, and the ultimate pride of her house, laughed as she and Padma sat at the Ravenclaw table.

There was a ring of excitement in the air tonight, for tonight the Triwizard Tournament Champions would be picked.

Fleur Delacour sat down across from them, she didn't have many friends from her own school. But she liked Hermione and Padma, even if they were younger, they were mature for their age, and rather intelligent.

"So, you think it's going to be you?" Padma asked.

Fleur raised her chin, "Oui, of course, it shall be me."

Her schoolmates gave her dark looks, they would support when and if she was picked, until then, Half-Breeds weren't anyone's first pick.

Well, not for the girls anyway, the boys for her school were all rooting for her.

"How about from your school?"

Padma and Hermione exchanged a look, then Hermione shrugged.

Padma nodded her head slightly, "People have been saying Cedric Diggory."

"That would be kind of cool," Hermione said, "A Hufflepuff Champion, that would be funny watching the Slytherins cheering for Hufflepuff."

"I thought it was the Gryffindors the Slytherins didn't like?" Fleur asked.

"It is," Hermione said, "but the Slytherins think Hufflepuffs are inherently weak."

"Speaking of Slytherins," Padma said, "What do you think they're up to?"

There was a group of seventh and sixth years at the end of the table farthest from the head table, whispering to one another.

"Padma," a familiar voice called.

She turned in her seat to face her identical twin.

"Twenty on Johnson," Parvati challenged.

"Fifty on Diggory," Padma said back.

They grinned and turned back to their respective tables.

"So you're that sure of him?" Fleur asked.

Padma shrugged, "He's top of their year and the Quidditch star. No one can outfly him."

"But Viktor Krum could," Hermione said, "He does Quidditch professionally."

Padma rolled her eyes, "In  _Hogwarts_ , sometimes you take things too literally."

Fleur poked at her food, "I'm too nervous to eat, this could change everything for me and my sister. We aren't just pretty faces."

Hermione grinned at her, "If I were a betting witch, I would put all my bets on you, Delacour."

Fleur smiled, but she wouldn't be at ease until her name was called from the Goblet of fire.

oOo

The Goblet of Fire had blazed to life in blue fire twice, Victor Krum, the Durmstrang champion, and Fleur Delacour, the Beauxbatons champion.

Everyone waited with bated breath, and once more the Goblet flared blue, a scrap of paper floating to Dumbledore's hand.

"And the Hogwarts champion is H-" uncharacteristically the Headmaster seemed to stumble over his words. He coughed and all grandeur left his voice as he asked the room at large, "Harry Potter?"

There was a deathly hush that fell over the room.

And it was Fred Weasley who broke it, calling out, "Is that a joke?"

"If it is, it isn't funny," George added.

"Harry Potter's dead," Lee Jordan said to the stunned room.

At that moment, the fire from the Goblet retreated completely, all signs of light and magic going dark.

A unanimous thought went out through all of them,  _what now?_

The professors looked at one another for a clue as to what to do next. Albus Dumbledore looked at a complete loss.

One of the Hufflepuff students who had believed absolutely that Cedric would be chosen protested loudly, "Harry Potter doesn't even go to this school. Even  _if_  he's alive, he can't represent  _our_  school."

Several other students cheered their agreement to this.

Then Karkaroff announced, "If the Potter boy doesn't show up, then Hogwarts forfeits."

The din that followed was nothing short of pandemonium.

It took McGonagall putting her wand to her throat to settle things, "We will recheck with the rules, and inform you all of our findings as soon as a decision has been made. Whoever put Mr. Potter's name in the Goblet should be deeply ashamed of their actions. Now off to bed, all of you."

Minerva watched the students depart, deeply disturbed.

"What are we going to do?" Pomona asked.

Minerva sighed, "We are going to have to contact Lily and James."

Everyone who heard this flinched.

Severus snarled, "Haven't they suffered enough?"

Minerva turned on him, lips thin, "You think they won't hear of this? We have to be the ones to tell them, I'd imagine they'll be here tomorrow morning wanting to see the Goblet."

"Perhaps we should address letters out to Harry Potter, explain things, maybe he'll show, stranger things have happened," Filius said.

"If the boy hasn't shown in thirteen years, why would he show now?" Severus asked.

"Have you ever met a wizard or witch who would want to give up their powers?"

Severus expression was hostile when he said, "Yes, I have."

Albus rejoined them, "It is worth a shot."

* * *

Late that night, each professor wrote a letter out to Mr. Harry J. Potter, making several copies of the letters, before owling them out.

It had been decided, and according to the rule book and their inability to restart the Goblet, that either Mr. Potter acted as their champion or Hogwarts forfeited.

Which was not going to sit well, and would basically destroy the point of the Triwizard Tournament bringing different schools together.

But the rules stated that if the chosen champion died before the tasks, a new one could not be chosen.

Filius decided to address his letter, not to Harry Potter, but simply Harry, and gave it to the meanest and most clever owl in the owlery.

She was a pretty thing, so white she seemed to glow in the dimness of the night. The snowy owl had been donated to them after any person the shop seller had sold her to had returned her in a week for her habit of biting and refusing to take mail.

"Come on, girl, we have need of you, you have to find Harry, you have to bring him home."

The owl looked at him narrowly, but held out her leg.

When she flew off, Filius felt the oddest feeling of hope. All the professors had loved James and Lily, watching them suffer, become closed off, and obsessed with their son's disappearance… it had been heartbreaking.

* * *

"Do you really think it's safe to go back to London?" Harry Romanoff asked his mother.

She shrugged, "At this point, son, I'm more worried about your assassins."

He grinned, because he knew she didn't mean that, well at least not completely.

His mother, Natasha Romanoff, was the most paranoid person on the planet, and despite all the travelling they did, the places they explored, and all the training she put him through, she never risked his safety unnecessarily.

She had trained him in every martial art she knew, with every weapon she had mastered, but she hadn't raised him to be an assassin like she had been brought up to be.

Sure, Harry knew how to kill someone, but he had been trained only to act in self defense or the defense of others. His mother had shared most of her own history, her alternative universe, where she was used indiscriminately as a weapon for profit and politics. Where morals, had been nothing to her until she met her family, the Avengers.

"Don't give me that face, I want to do some digging."

"I thought you said the Wizarding Worlds were too small to snoop in?"

She huffed, "Yes, but I want to find out more about your family history. It's been thirteen years, I'm sure they have forgotten about you now."

"Gee, thanks," he laughed, letting his hand play in the breeze outside the car window.

"But just to be careful, you should wear the wig," Natasha said with a straight face.

"The blonde one?" he asked.

She nodded seriously.

He stuck his tongue out at her, and her lips twitched.

Harry grinned and turned his attention back to the window. He loved watching the world whirl past. Every landscape had its own flavour, its own personality, and he had watched those landscapes move past, whether city, desert, rainforest, or ocean, through windows of cars, trains, planes, or hiked across them. They had even ridden camels a few times.

Harry loved it all, he loved his life, he loved his mother.

It was like being on vacation or on an abroad trip all the time. No one place was their home, because they were each other's home, and the world was theirs.

Did it sometimes suck that if they found a place they really liked they had to move on because magical people would hunt them down? Yeah, but Harry wouldn't trade this life for anything.

He acknowledged how privileged they were, his mother being from a pseudo-feature had been able to buy stock of companies, such as investing in the internet or computer companies, that made them absurdly rich. It helped that they didn't own anything but their backpacks and the food in their bellies.

"So do we greet people by saying, Cheery-O Governor?" Harry joked.

She rolled her eyes, "I taught you several British accents."

He nodded, "Which one are you going with?" His own accent depended on the language he speaking and sometimes the place.

Amusingly, his favourite language turned out to be magical, he could speak to snakes, which he used to freak out a lot of tourist guides. For a long time, it was the only language he knew that his mother hadn't picked up, until she did.

She couldn't speak to snakes well, but apparently, she could understand them now.

Natasha parked the rental car, then said in her chosen British accent, "Put on the wig, and let's go-"

Just then a beautiful snow owl glided down to them, landing on Harry's shoulder.

Natasha looked at the bird warily, but she nodded at Harry to take the letter addressed to him.

Harry read the letter quickly, "Whelp, looks like Hogwarts is contacting us again."

A flash of guilt shown in his mother's eyes, "Do you regret-"

"No, Mom, I don't regret choosing to stay with you."

She bit her lip, "Yes, but you love your books, I bet they have a big library, and even if it was just for a year. Maybe you could make some friends, you don't-"

"I don't have friends because I don't want them."

"You don't have friends because we are never in one place long enough for you to be comfortable opening up to people."

"No, I just don't like opening up to people."

"Repeating what I say doesn't change its meaning," she smirked.

He huffed, "I like my books, I like travelling, I can interact with people when I need to but I don't really enjoy it."

She put a hand to her heart, "And am I not a person? You wound me."

"Nope," Harry agreed, "you're not, you're my mother."

She ruffled his hair which really made no difference to his non-conforming curls, "So no school for you?"

He pushed back his bangs, "They aren't asking me to return to school, they're saying if I don't compete in this tournament, my magic is going to be stripped away."

"What?" she asked, snatching the letter from him and reading it for herself.

Harry petted the owl, who hooted pleasantly, rubbing her head against his fingers and cheek in a claiming fashion. If Mom let him keep her he was going to name her Hedwig from one of the history books he had read from the magical world.

"You think I could win a Tournament like that?" he asked.

She looked up at him, "My son? Of course he can. Put on that damn wig and let's go to-"

"The library?" Harry asked hopefully.

She shook her head, scowling at him.

He mock pouted.

"No," she said, tone dark, "the bookstore."

His smile could have shined through the cloud cover. Then he asked, "How do we get to Hogwarts?"

In answer, the snowy owl, who he was calling Hedwig, hooted, and ruffled her feathers as if to say,  _Naturally, humans, I shall guide you._

Natasha snorted, "Magical birds." But despite the resentment in her voice, she found herself oddly fond of their new feathery friend.

* * *

AN: Thoughts, comments, questions, or owls with pointers? Please?


	3. Simple, Really.

 

Harry hated wearing wigs, his real hair was thick and itchy underneath it, and he thought he looked sickly as a blonde.

Of course, his Mom was beautiful in her blonde wig, and she never looked uncomfortable, no matter what she wore.

The books at the bookstore were amazing. One of the things he liked the most about the Wizarding World, no matter the country, were the moving pictures, not just photographs but drawings and paintings.

He was pretty sure the Louvre would lose its crap if they saw an old masterpiece start moving, or worse, start talking to them.

Harry was immediately drawn to the Charms books, which was by far his best subject, not having a wand -the one Mom had didn't work for him at all, Charms was the easiest to do wandlessly. Well, he supposed potions would be too, but they never had the ingredients necessary for the potion recipes they had picked up, nor did either of them particularly want to drag around a cauldron around.

Besides, both of them were lousy cooks, he couldn't imagine what would happen if they tried cooking with magic.

"Harry," Mom called softly.

He turned and found the book she was holding out,  _Transfigurations and Disguise._

Harry liked the idea of Transfiguration, but he had limited success with it. In turn, he showed her the book he couldn't leave on the shelf,  _Charms and the Art of Defense._

She dumped another pile on him. "What are these?" he asked, trying to balance them and succeeding.

"Fourth year books," she said in the quiet voice people use in libraries, "I told the man at the desk you were a transferring."

"Transferring from where, may I ask?" an aristocratic voice drawled, coming around the stack.

Neither Harry nor Natasha were surprised by his appearance, they had both spotted his shadow, heard his footfalls.

Unlike their golden blonde wigs, this man's hair was straight white blonde. They both took note of his snake designed cane.

"We're moving from Russia to London," Mom said, her accent a brilliant mix between media American, media British, and ever so softly Russian.

Harry's accent didn't sound as smooth, but it was similar enough that they sounded like they were from the same place, "And you are, sir?"

Then the man smirked, looking down his nose at them, and drawled, "Lucius Malfoy."

"Pleasure, Mr. Malfoy, I am Natasha Romanoff, and this is my son, Nathaniel Romanoff."

Harry shot her a look, but he knew why she had switched to his middle name instead, the name 'Harry Potter' was on every newspaper they passed. Apparently, the whole Goblet of Fire thing was a big deal.

"Hogwarts bound then. My son, Draco Malfoy, is also a fourth year," he said eyeing the books in Harry's arms.

Harry immediately disliked this nosy man.

"Is it a good school?" Mom asked him.

"The best," the man said immediately, "If one is sorted into the right house."

"House?" Harry asked.

Mr. Malfoy, pulled a book of from one of the isle tables, " _Hogwarts A History_ , and Slytherin, is the superior house out of the four."

Harry stiffened at that, but his mom, of course, gave no sign of recognition. There had been one group of assassins when he was nine that Mom had interrogated before disposing of their bodies. They had claimed to have been Slytherins, well Slytherins and Death Eaters. Which was a stupid name, how does one eat death? Unless they meant they were meat eaters, or maybe cannibals?

"Thank you for the recommendation," Mom said, batting her eyes at him, and swaying her hips.

Harry saw the man notice, and really wanted to punch him in the solar plexus.

Mr. Malfoy nodded, "Have a good day, Ms. Romanoff. And I hope, Mr. Romanoff you make suitable friends at school." He turned on his heal with his purchase and disappeared.

"Whoever his son is," Mom said, "trip him."

Harry nodded, and they went to the register.

After the book store, they went to get a trunk for him and ended up getting two, both spelled with 'Feather Weight' charms.

"Magic is so awesome," Harry enthused as they made their way next to the cloak shop.

* * *

Natasha could only smile at her son's childlike glee. Of course, he was like this about most things, whether they had come across a bird he had never seen before or heard a new story that got his imagination going.

Sometimes she missed her old life, and she certainly wished she could have introduced Clint and his family to her son, but Natasha wouldn't have changed her fate.

Harry was the very best thing to ever happen to her.

She only ever felt guilty for keeping him to herself, he had a type of kindness to him that she seldom encountered. And she was proud of him, so proud.

Proud of this child she had raised, that she brought up to be strong, noble, and sensible.

"Alright, owl," she said, "You lead the way."

"Hedwig," Harry corrected.

The snowy owl, Hedwig, led them out of the Wizarding sectioned off area, and led them to the train station before circling back to her perch on Harry's shoulder.

They entered the train station, walking slowly, both she and Harry trying to both look and not look at the owl who they were waiting for a signal from.

When they reached a piller after platform nine, she again departed from Harry's shoulder and flew through the third pillar between nine and ten.

Harry gave her a look, then they both shrugged and casually walked through the wall.

Harry laughed when they didn't go whack against the bricks. Hedwig flew North over the tracks before looping back. She hooted, and shook off her feathers, Natasha saw the shimmer of magic spark off those white wings that told her the owl had some type of Charm placed on her.

How smart was this bird? Had she been instructed to lead them this way?

"I don't think a train is coming," Harry said.

She turned to him, raising a brow, "Since, when do you mind waiting at the station?" It was one of his favourite times to read, as he prefered to watch the landscape and escape into his own thoughts when the trains were moving.

Harry held up a  _Hogwarts A History_ , "The Hogwarts Express only comes and goes during the start and end of term and winter break."

She put her hands on her hips, "When did you have time to read that far?"

He grinned sheepishly, "When you were changing into your new robes."

She sighed, he read books like others breathed, and she had a feeling that with his new featherweight, expanded trunk, he would have a true library with him by the end of the year.

"So we walk," she said, hopping down onto the tracks, he followed easily behind her. The trunks they got had their backpacks in them, and they had straps that they slung over their shoulder. It wasn't a comfortable fit, but it wasn't difficult, it felt like carrying empty boxes.

"Do you think we will make it in time for the First Task?"

She nodded, "We have twenty days or so, we will make it there before then."

"Hiking?" he asked with an edge of excitement to his voice.

She nodded, "Well, hiking on tracks. I think we have time to wander if we see a town near enough."

He grinned, "I hope we get all the way to the Highlands."

"You say that now, but it will get colder."

His grin didn't falter, "Sorry, Mom, but you had us spend every Christmas in St. Petersburg. Unless there's an arctic storm, I think I can handle it."

She grinned back, "That's my boy."

* * *

Unsurprisingly, no sign of their son showed up.

"Lily, Lily look at me," James said, catching his pacing wife, holding her by the shoulders. Their apartment was nothing impressive, nothing like the home they had in Godric's Hollow.

"We aren't going to find him," he said.

"You're giving up!?" she spluttered. "We finally have a lead!"

"Lily!" he yelled, "Enough, it's enough. His name was put in the Goblet as lark."

"But the magic recognized him, choose him, it-"

"How many 'Harry Potters' have we found in the last thirteen years, Lils. There are hundreds, it's a common name. 'Not just another Tom, Dick, or Harry' is a saying for a reason. Who knows who the Goblet was referring to, for all we know we've been tracking some distant relative of mine."

"He's out there, I know it-"

"We don't know it. Lily, you just want it so badly you have let yourself believe that he's-"

" _We died_ ," she said in a low voice.

James froze, it was the first time she had talked about  _that_  in twelve years. Sirius had told them they had been gone for either five minutes or hours, but on the  _other side_  it had been lifetimes.

He couldn't remember it, not really, not truly, but he  _felt_  it. Perhaps they hadn't stayed dead, but death had changed them.

"I remember, James, I remember."

"What do you remember?" he asked carefully.

She swallowed hard, her eyes were wet, but she didn't cry, Lily hadn't cried, not a single damn tear in all these years. As if crying was admitting defeat.

James had made up for that with all tears he had shed over the years.

"He died too, Harry… he was in my arms, and I told him to live, I begged for it not to be so,  _not Harry,_  and then he shown with white light, and  _I know_  he came back. He's alive. I know it."

"But he's gone," James pleaded, and damn him if he didn't have fresh tears rolling down his face.

"We haven't found Peter either."

It couldn't have hurt more if she stabbed him through with a dull knife.

She cupped his cheeks, pulling him down into a kiss, "We'll find our son, I believe it. I truly believe it. We're so close."

James wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her flaming hair, breathing her in as if she were life itself, "I don't know if I can survive another disappointment, Lily."

She held him, but had no more words of comfort to give him. Even she didn't know where next to look.

* * *

They arrived in Hogsmeade the day of the First Task, and checked in to a little rustic place called the Three Broomsticks Inn as Natasha and Nathaniel Romanoff.

"I can't believe they really ride broomsticks," Natasha muttered under her breath as she unpacked her weapons on her bed.

She didn't have any guns, as she had discovered that apparently one of the downsides of being a witch or wizard in this world meant that some technology and electronics would break down, or in the case of guns, have a more than fifty percent chance of jamming or misfiring.

So she had purchased more throwing knives and even invested in a crossbow, whose simpler mechanisms didn't seem to give a shit about her magical powers.

Harry had jumped into the shower, clearly not wanting to have his first day of school looking like he had been sleeping in the woods for the last few weeks.

"They are going to know we are connected," she said, he had left the door cracked open so he could hear her.

"I think you should play it low, we can use Hedwig to pass messages, Hindi-Russian?" he asked.

Hindi-Russian was their code, they used Russian words, French grammar, and Sanskrit script to pass private messages along, so far no one had been able to crack that particular code. Mostly, because you had to be fluent in all three languages and understand all their inside jokes.

"So you want me to scout and keep my distance?"

"If this really is my 'first day of school' as you keep teasing me with, then do you really want to be the mom who had to chaperone?"

"Brat."

"Taught and raised," he shot back, turning off the water.

"Harry, these people, they all have magic, you could-"

"I can defend myself," he huffed, and she could hear the scowl in his voice, "Besides, my magical shield charms are better than yours, and you're the one with the stick."

"Wand," she corrected, even though she was usually the one to call it her stick.

More often than not, in public, around men who looked at her hungrily, which caused Harry to sink into his chair and fight off a blush.

Less than a minute later he came out in trousers, his hair dripping wet. He slung the towel over his head, showing off the tonality of his muscles.

Natasha knew body fitness, and she had him eating the right foods and working out on the right schedule that his body was at its best, though not its most extreme.

He was no match for her, and likely if he went to an American football line up, he wouldn't be a match with kids his own age, he would not be the biggest nor the strongest. But chances were good he would be the most agile, one of the fastest, and certainly one of the most enduring.

"Whatever this competition is, you'll win," she said, almost but not quite keeping the smugness out of her voice. He was her prodigy after all, and no son of Black Widow would come in second place in a real fight.

He snorted, "Yeah, unless, you know, it's some formal test of any of the magicks that I have  _no_  formal training in. Learning magic from books isn't really the same."

"You're the one who didn't want to attend Hogwarts when you were eleven."

"Yeah, well, three years ago I didn't have my magic on the line for being stripped away."

Natasha understood that, though her magic hadn't been something she had been born with, it was very much was a part of her now, an intrinsic part of her that even when she wasn't using it, she could feel it like a second sense.

She tossed him a shirt, "If you don't hurry, you will be late."

"You'll be in the crowd?" he asked, slipping on the long sleeve green sweater shirt that brought out his eyes.

"Yes, and I won't follow you into the castle, but I will be checking out the perimeter. You have a week before I start scaling the walls."

A week for him to tell her any secret entrances and the security system.

"Right," he said, tying up his boots. He grabbed his luggage, "See you around, Mum." He kissed her cheek, and she pulled him into a hug, kissing both his cheeks.

"Wow them."

He grinned, pushing up his rimless glasses on his nose, "Considered them wowed."

* * *

He all but sprinted out of the inn, heading to the field where Professor Filius Flitwick had said the First Task would be.

It was easy enough to find, the roar of the crowd and the large tent visible at a distance.

Harry entered that tent, dropping his bag to the side. He heard what the announcer outside said, "Now, according to the rules, the Hogwarts champion has twenty minutes to show up to the First Task before being officially disqualified."

Booing and outrage greeted this announcement and Harry breathed out a sigh of relief. He wasn't too late.

Only one other person stood in the tent. He was a large man, with blonde hair, and was peeking out of a tent flap.

Harry was glad he didn't have to wear that damn wig, and that he would be going by his real name Harry Nathaniel Romanoff. No sense hiding when he was about to partake in a very public game.

His stomach twisted at that thought, he knew he would do what was needed, but he didn't relish the idea of being the centre of attention, and if the sound of the crowd was anything to go by, it was a large crowd.

And then Harry heard something that stilled the blood in his veins, a roar sounded, thunderous enough to shake the very ground.

It sounded like a dinosaur, and that thought gave him a sinking suspension as to what the First Task was.

He just hoped no one asked him to kill anything.

Approaching the man, he coughed.

The man jumped, and whirled, "Who-" his blue eyes went so wide Harry worried they might fall out of his skull. "James- no, Harry Potter? Is that, by Scott, you're  _alive!_ "

"Yeah," Harry agreed calmly, "And my name is Harry Romanoff, and I'm here to keep my magic, so if you could explain the rules?"

The man flushed, "Um, oh, well, gosh, you-urm."

"There's a time limit," Harry prompted him.

"Right," the man said, taking a deep breath, "Dragons, the First Task is dragons, and you have to get the golden egg away from the mother dragon."

Harry blinked at him, he wanted to say  _well, that sounds stupid._  Then he thought about what his mother would say, and so he grinned and said, "Okay."

His mother had a will of steel, and in the last few years had him doing obstacle courses that had made him wish for a dragon. But he somehow doubted she would be able to keep completely cool watching him face off with a real fire breathing drake.

Taking in a steadying breath, Harry pushed out into the sunlight, past the stuttering man.

He was as ready as he was ever going to be.

* * *

A complete hush fell over the crowd when a figure emerged from the tent.

"It can't be," Mad-Eye Moody breathed, his magical eye zooming in on the figure.

Minerva was standing, and Filius hanging onto the rail at her side, said, "Bless that snowy owl."

The figure certainly looked like he could have been Harry Potter, he was the spitting image of his father. He was tallish for a fourteen year old, and he walked with a grace that spoke of some intense sport.

While the crowd was memorized by him, the mother Hungarian Horntail was enraged. When she spotted him and sucked a breath in before unleashing an inferno at him.

People in the crowd gasped and screamed.

When the flames cleared, the boy was nowhere to be seen.

Someone pointed him out, crouched behind a pile of rocks, and creeping closer to the dragon in a bent kneed gate.

Albus, who was sitting at the judges' table, was bent forward nearly in half to see, he whispered, "It can't be him."

Tears spilled down Minerva's cheeks, "After all these years..."

The dragon found him, again shooting fire like water from a fire hydrant, and Minerva clapped a hand to her mouth.

The crowd held its collective breath, and when an unharmed Harry Potter began another slow creep toward the dragon's other side, the crowd broke out into cheers and applause.

Which seemed to aggravate the Horntail, who began spewing fire at random, but always seemed to miss the boy who always vanished from the dragon's sideline behind a pile of rocks.

When the Horntail finally paused in spewing fire, flicking her deadly tail, something happened that no one expected -well aside from the one uninvited person in the crowd who  _had_ expected it.

The boy ran straight at the dragon, quick as racing greyhound.

The dragon saw him, and lowered her head, opening her maw directly into the boy's path.

He jumped.

And every single wizard and witch in that stadium, but for one, believed he was about to get eaten.

But his jump turned into a roll, and as the dragon released her wrath, Harry Potter, rolled up her snout, grabbing ahold of one of her spikes on her head, he held on like a piece of stubborn tinsel.

The Horntail began to shake her head back and forth, back and forth.

"Does he have a wand!?" Filius exclaimed.

Horror flooded all the professors and judges, as it finally registered what it would mean for Lily and James Potter's  _fourteen_  year old son to compete in the Triwizard Tournament.

Their fourteen year old son who wasn't magically educated who had just walked into a pit with one of the most dangerous dragons in the magical realm: a mother Hungarian Horntail guarding her eggs.

"Lily is going to kill us all," Severus muttered helpfully as they all watched Harry Potter hold onto the dragon's head.

Surprisingly, for those who could make out Harry's expression, it looked as if he were smiling.

In fury, the Horntail let out a blaze of flame that obscured the audience's version of the boy valiantly holding on.

When the flames disappeared, so had the boy.

The dragon tilted its head, shook it, then settled over her clutch of eggs. Raising the spines on her tail, she waited, her eyes searching the stadium for movement.

In the stands, Padma Patil said, "Well, there goes the Boy Who Lived."

Hermione smacked her shoulder.

Meanwhile, Albus was sweating in his robes as he and everyone else searched for any sign of a boy, a splattered body, or a charred ash heap.

Natasha Romanoff was grinning to herself in the uppermost corner of one of the stands, having gone completely unnoticed by any, she saw what the others missed.

Karkaroff leaned back in his chair, "He should have forfeited, losing his magic would be perhaps not as bad as losing his life."

Maxime glared at him and opened her mouth to say something, one a golden egg appeared on the ledge before the judges' table.

Moments later, Harry Potter climbed up on the ledge. Standing, and dusting himself off, he placed the Golden Egg in front of Albus Dumbledore. He raised one dark brow.

The crowd spotted him, and again, everyone fell completely silent as they all took in what had just happened.

"So," Harry said, "I get to keep my magic, right?"

Albus opened his mouth, but no sound came out, when he tried again, he asked, "How?"

Harry took of his glasses and washed them with the edge of his sweater, in the process avoiding everyone's direct gaze as he said, "I let go while she was distracted, slid down her neck, slipped underneath her with the eggs, she wasn't lying directly on them, of course, so there was enough space to crawl on my stomach, grab the fake egg, escape from her blind side, her left hind-leg to be precise, and then I climbed up this banner." He put his glasses back on, "Simple, really."

Madame Maxime held up a wand and a ten appeared above her.

A deafening roar, louder than the dragon sounded around the stadium.

And as if not to be outdone, the actual dragon roared at them all shooting fire at everything and anything, but everyone was out of reach.

Mr. Crouch, shot up a ten as well.

Albus, a bit numbly, shot up a ten.

Kakuroff sneered at Harry, shooting up a four. "No magic," he said.

Harry smiled at him, clearly not giving a flying shit.

Bagman, who had run up to the stands throw up a ten with his wand, then pointed his wand throat, "Harry Romanoff, forty-four points!"

The crowd again exploded, which again, pissed off the Horntail.

Harry turned to the crowd, and caught his mother disappearing from view.

"Romanoff?" Minerva asked.

Harry smiled at her, "Yep, that's me, Harry Nathaniel Romanoff."

"You're Russian?" Pomona squeaked, startled by the name and his accent, and generally, the whole watching him run at an angry mother dragon without drawing a wand.

Harry shrugged, "More Russian than British, I guess, I certainly spent more time there than here."

"But you are Harry Potter?" Minerva pressed, though she didn't need to, "You have your mother's eyes, but you look like James's clone."

Those emerald eyes narrowed on her, "My birth parents are dead, my name is Harry Romanoff."

The Hogwarts staff stared at him, and none of them knew quite where to begin.

* * *

AN: Theories, dreams, thoughts, or mother dragon fire? Please, pretty, pretty please?


	4. Dead Men Tell Tales

 

Harry knew wizards and witches were culturally weird people. Despite the fact that he hadn't spent much time with them, it wasn't hard to tell their cultures were stuck in the past. Natasha and he only occasionally entered the magical sectioned off places when they stumbled open them. Always stopping by the bookstore or library if there was one, but they didn't linger, and it was the only time they ever wore disguises.

Mom prided her ability to go where she wanted when she wanted with a single passport, seeing as in this world no one was out to get her or knew anything about the illegal actions in her past.

No, it was only in the magical worlds they had to be careful, and so far, the Hogwarts staff wasn't exactly making him regret his decision not to attend when he was younger.

They walked in awkward silence to the Headmaster's office, well awkward for them, Harry was taking stalk of the castle's layout and all of the magical paintings and ghosts.

Mom might have a harder time sneaking in than they originally thought.

The gargoyles moved when Mr. Dumbledore said a nonsense word that sounded like the name of some candy.

Up and up they climbed the steps and Harry was blown away, not by the room with all its trinkets, but the firebird, the phoenix.

Spotting him, the phoenix let out happy, beautiful trill, and flew to him, passing its master and settling on his shoulder.

The Headmaster looked startled but not displeased, "That is a phoenix, his name is Fawkes."

"He's beautiful," Harry said, rubbing a knuckle under his beak.

Fawkes, let out a warbling purr, and rubbed back like a cat.

"Have a seat, Mr. Potter,"

"My name is Romanoff," Harry said again, as they all sat down. Fawkes hopped into Harry's lap and sunk into Harry petting his feathers. Apparently magical birds liked him.

The headmaster and professors did a hot-potato exchange of glances. Of the professors here there was the Head of Slytherin House, Professor Snape, Head of Hufflepuff, Professor Sprout, and Head of Ravenclaw, Professor Flitwick. The fourth, Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor, said she would be joining them shortly.

Harry didn't trust them as far as the old man could throw them.

The Headmaster cleared his throat, "You did very well today."

"Thank you," Harry said, keeping his expression neutral, he didn't care about this man's approval, and he didn't like how charming he was trying to be. They were hiding something from him, something big.

"Had you ever met a dragon before?"

"No."

"Do you have a wand?" Professor Flitwick asked.

Harry shook his head, "No, they don't work well for me." Maybe if they had gone into a shop for wands and not just picked from the slim selections of his assassins, but they had deduced that wands  _were_  registered and that underaged wizards had tracking spells put on those registered wands. That tidbit had been in an outed book they had read in America, but it was enough that they decided he would be better off going without.

The small but kind professor smiled at him, "Wands can be tricky, have you tried Mr. Ollivander's shop?"

Harry shook his head.

"Have you ever been to Diagon Alley?" Professor Snape asked.

He nodded, "For the first time this month, we walked here from London."

The man's onyx eyes went a bit wide, "Walked?"

"Along the tracks, we would have gotten here sooner but we stopped to sight see and visit a few of the towns. Scotland has some incredible places."

They all stared at him, looking mistified.

Hadn't these people ever heard of backpacking?

"Who is 'we'?" The Headmaster asked.

"My mother and I."

"Is she a witch?"

Harry nodded again, "Yes, she is, not that it's really any of your business."

"So she trained you? And despite never seeing a dragon before, you knew enough to handle one? You know enough about the Wizarding World not to be surprised by any of the magic around you, yet you've only recently been to magical London." the last was more of a statement.

Harry was done with this line of questioning. They weren't asking about his life and his mother for his education. This wasn't an enrollment discussion, they were trying to figure out where he'd been for the last thirteen years and if his mother was a criminal. He could see it on their faces.

So Harry took control of the discussion, "What I want to know is why was I entered into a competition like this without my consent?"

Silence greeted him.

"We don't know," the Headmaster said finally.

Harry leaned back in his seat, "So was this a ploy to find me, or another assassination attempt? Because whoever this 'Dark Lord' is trying to kill me, he's going to have to do better than a dragon."

Harry watched the professors involuntary jerks, the widening of their eyes, and the thoughts flying over their expressions. Harry kept his own expression relaxed, careful not to let his body language give him away.

But he realized he was finally going to get some answers. He knew the Dark Lord wanted to kill him, he knew that his followers thought that their 'Lost Lord' might return if they killed him, but what he didn't know was  _why._

And Harry could tell that at least two people in this room knew exactly why, it was written on the brief glimpse of guilt on Professor Snape's face and the sharpening of focus in Mr. Dumbledore's anything but innocent baby-blues.

* * *

Minerva landed on her feet in James Potter's office in the Ministry.

He looked up, surprised as she brushed the ash off.

"Professor?" he asked.

"Where's Lily?" Minerva asked.

James stood, and walked to the wall, he pounded a fist to it and yelled, "Lils!"

A loud bang sounded on the other side of the wall like she had thrown something heavy at her side of the wall, maybe a book. Lily always seemed to have large tomes at hand.

A moment later she stormed into the room, "How many times do I have to tell you? I have my own office door, you d- Minerva?"

"We found him," Minerva said.

"What!?" James and Lily exclaimed.

Sirius popped his head in then, "Yo, what's all the noise about, and why wasn't I invited? Oh, hi, McGonagall."

Minerva ignored him, "Harry appeared for the First Task. Your son is at Hogwarts now."

They all gaped at her.

Minerva reached over the fireplace and grabbed a handful of powder, throwing it into the fire and saying, "McGonagall's Office."

James, Lily, and Sirius were hot on her heels.

* * *

Harry officially disliked  _both_  the Headmaster and Snape. Instead of answering any of his questions, 'that were adult problems,' they kept asking about his mother.

Having enough, he stood, Fawkes flying back to his own perch in the room, "Why can't you answer  _any_  of my questions?"

"Mr. Potter-"

"My name is Harry Romanoff," he said through gritted teeth.  _Why_  couldn't they get that through their heads? "Plenty of adoptive kids had their last names changed. I thought the British prided themselves on polite talk, you are being uncommonly rude."

Hot potato.

"Stop that," he demanded, "What is wrong with you people?"

"Your parents," Professor Flitwick said softly, "aren't dead."

Harry looked down at the man, about to tell him just how much 'rubbish' that was when the office door opened. He turned expecting to see Professor McGonagall, but in front of her were two strangers and one behind her.

A woman, whose face and hair tugged at an old nightmare, and a man, who looked like an older version of his own reflection.

_Your parents aren't dead._

Harry's entire world spun on its axis, and he felt as lost as they looked.

This was impossible.

They were dead.

Mom would-

Mom.

Harry's heart broke. How was he supposed to explain this to her? She would never willingly have kept him away from his birth parents. And if she found out that they had been alive this whole time… God. She would never forgive herself.

Shaking himself, determined not to make this a bigger mess than it already was, Harry stuck out his hand, "Hi, I'm Harry Romanoff, it's nice to meet you." He made sure to let the mix of Russian and American accents dominate his English. He could mimic every person in this room, but he wanted it clear that he wasn't one of them.

* * *

James's heart plummeted.

_Harry Romanoff_ , not Harry Potter. Though this was unmistakably his son, Lily's eyes stared out at him from his own younger reflection.

Was he Russian? They had gone to search for him in Russia more than once, as well as America. Though an American accent could mean he just watched American Media, like the movies Lily brought him and Sirius to, perhaps it's how he learned English.

The thought that English might not have been his son's first language bothered him, a lot.

He recovered before Lily did, extending his right hand, he clasped hands with his son, "James Potter," he said, then couldn't help but add, "Your dad."

Harry's handshake was strong and he let go too soon, and repeated pleasantly, "It's nice to meet you."

Lily, unsurprisingly, didn't settle for a handshake, she rushed him, wrapping Harry in a hug.

Harry stiffened, and James held his breath, not knowing what Lily would do, if she could even handle being pushed away and rejected by him.

But Harry, wrapped his arms around her, perhaps without quite as much enthusiasm, but not without feeling.

James heard him say to her ever so softly, "I'm so sorry."

After a minute though, Harry pulled back, and James put a hand to Lily's shoulder. Thankfully, she didn't fight him, retreating back to his side giving their long lost son breathing space.

James said, "And this is your mother, Lily Potter."

Harry's smile looked forced, and not as coolly as he had greeted James, he said in a tight voice, "Hi."

The moment was awkward, but James let himself just absorb the fact that his son was alive, alive and healthy.

Lily broke that silence, "You have to know, Harry, we never stopped looking for you. We never gave up on you, not ever."

Harry opened his mouth then closed it, then seemed to make a decision and asked so bluntly to put Sirius to shame, "Right, but why aren't you dead?"

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall chided.

Harry glared at her then at him and Lily, "I saw you die. The only memory I have of you, dim as it is, is you begging for my life, that madman's laughter, presumably," he made air quotes, "'the Dark Lord,' followed by a green light and then you dropped. I even, very, very dimly," he pointed a James, "remember before that, you telling her," pointing at Lily, "To take me and run. You  _both_  died. And no one gets up from an A.K."

"A.K.?" Sirius asked, finally speaking up.

"Avada Kedavra," Harry said brazenly, and everyone in the room flinched.

Lily answered softly, "And you were hit with it too, but you came back."

Harry looked at her, then said slowly, "the green light at the end…" he shook his head. "So Death brought us all back… Why?"

"Death isn't a person," McGonagall said.

Harry met her gaze and said with complete seriousness, "Just because you haven't met someone doesn't mean they don't exist."

In any other circumstance, James would have laughed at the expression on his old Head of House's face. She looked like she had bitten into a lemon.

"But you were dead, right?" Harry asked them, "When Mom saved me, you were still dead." He said it more like a statement, as if it were fact that he had been told.

"I'm your mother," Lily said, the jealousy in her voice thinly veiled.

"No," Harry said firmly, "You're my  _birth_  mother. My Mom, Natasha Romanoff, raised me. I'm  _her_  son."

James shut his eyes and took in deep breaths, his hand tightening on Lily's shoulder, her hand covered his.  _They_  had lost their son, missed out on his entire life. This person, their little boy, had grown up without them. He was a stranger to them. Lily leaned back against him, as if her legs couldn't quite hold her up.

There were no words for this pain.

Sirius, good old Sirius, stepped up, "Yes, Lily and James died that night, and they came back that  _same_  night. We looked for you. We all did. Whoever this Natasha is, she kidnapped you."

Harry's expression darkened, and he seemed to close down, he took a step back and to the side so that the Headmaster was no longer behind him. "And who the hell are you?"

And James blamed Lily's penchant for action movies, because with the Russian accent, James felt a flash of fear of Harry at that moment. He sounded, well not evil, but like the proverbial bad guy, even if he was just a kid.

"I, Mr. Harry  _Potter_ , am your godfather, or maybe," Sirius who had no sense of self-preservation, grinned cheekily, " _dog_ father, Sirius Black, and if your parents had stayed dead, you should have come to live with me, as opposed to being kidnapped and brainwashed by some Russian chick."

Harry's response was succinct, "Fuck you."

Clearly, the boy's patience for this screwed up circumstance had a limit.

Unsurprisingly, Sirius seemed to be the end of that limit.

Still, McGonagall and Lily both chided, "Language."

Harry glared at them all, "Listen, I didn't come here to find a family I didn't know existed. I came here to compete in the stupid tournament, that no one seems willing to tell me  _anything_  about, and possibly attend school here for a year, maybe two." And he looked as if he was having real doubts about the latter.

James felt like things were moving too fast, he couldn't lose him again. He couldn't survive it. But before he could decide on the perfect words, on the one thing to say that would get him to say, Lily asked a question that was more level headed.

"Did you compete?"

He nodded, "I did. And before we talk about the stupidity of throwing students in a pen with dragons for sport. Can someone explain to me why the Dark Lord wants me dead? And who is he? None of my assassins ever gave him a name."

"Assassins," Lily murmured in horror.

"Voldemort," Sirius answered, "And his followers want you dead because you're the Boy Who Lived, the night he hit you with the killing curse, was the night Voldemort was destroyed."

"Is Voldemort dead?"

Several voices answered yes and several answered no.

"Glad we cleared that up," Harry said dryly.

"How many assassins were there?" Lily asked.

Harry shrugged, "Maybe a dozen or so. My mom would know exactly, I don't remember them all."

Lily didn't correct him this time, though James knew she wanted to.

"If you had stayed with us, you would have been safe," Sirius said.

Harry crossed his arms, and asked with enough sarcasm to make James's teeth hurt, "Really?"

Sirius puffed out his chest, "Of course, we're the good guys."

James spoke before Sirius could say something else insufferable, "Harry, where have you been all these years? All the spells we used… they led us all over the world."

"Well, that would be because I was all over the world. I mean aside from no long stretches of time spent in the UK, we've been nearly everywhere. I was homeschooled, so we just kept moving."

"And you never thought that people who loved you might be looking for you?" Sirius asked.

"No," Harry said firmly, "Because the 'good guys' would have gone to the police. We haven't been hiding. We used the same names, the same passports for the last thirteen years. If you were able to track even a portion of all the places we've been and gone to any, what is that word you people use? 'Muggle' police force in almost any nation, the name 'Harry' would have come up in correlation with the places I've been. Typically, it is only bad guys who  _don't_  go to the police."

James felt gut punched. They were Aurors, they  _were_  the police, and they could have gone to the muggles. And they did originally, but after a year… well, the description of a baby named Harry didn't have any leads. It never occurred to them to ask the muggles once enough years had passed, without a description, without proof that Harry was somehow alive, muggle law would have pronounced him dead.

They never thought that all the tracking spells they used  _had_  worked, that a list of countries with approximated dates over the years would have been enough evidence for the muggles to find their son.

"So our spells did work," Snape said, "A few years back, you were in Ireland, then Norway, then Japan?"

Harry nodded, and gave Snape an unfriendly look, "Yes, and that confirms our suspicion that we were being followed. What type of spell did you use? It is pretty rare people get that close."

The way he said  _people_  James was pretty sure he had Snape's past figured out.

"How did we never see you?" Lily asked, "You look just like James?"

Harry uncrossed his arms, and threaded a hand through his hair that looked as wild as James's. Poor kid.

"My mom used to be on a task force, a military unit of sorts. The real question is how we never saw  _you_?"

The answer was because they had always gone undercover, they had assumed a Death Eater had Harry, because why else would they be running?

The extent of the misunderstanding that had happened, the pain that it had brought them all…

"We were wearing disguises to hide from your kidnapper," Sirius said, "But you're home now, you're safe now."

Harry actually snorted, which was the least controlled reaction they had gotten out of him, "This isn't my home, and the dragon sort of dispelled any notion of safety, if you know, a school full of underaged magic users was ever really safe."

"Hogwarts is the safest place on the planet," Sirius retorted.

Harry smiled, though the expression was not kind, and he said something in Russian that sounded oddly beautiful, completely fluent, and not in any way flattering.

Out of anyone in the room, it was only and oddly, Phineas Nigellus Black who reacted to Harry's words, the portrait laughed.

Apparently, Lily and James were going to need to learn Russian. Even Dumbledore looked blank.

"Right," James said, "Sirius is a moron, but he's right, you are safe now. We can keep you safe. We promise."

Harry looked at him with eyes that were older than they should have been, "I doubt it. The people who want me dead will stop at nothing. This one guy snuck into our train compartment as a rat. A freaking  _rat._ "

They all went still, and James asked in a voice that wasn't his own, "What happened to him?"

"I stumped it out. I hate rats. Nasty vermin that carry diseases around, poop everywhere, and eat everything. They will eat people if they can get away with it, they have ticks, and just, -they are gross. The stupid thing tried crawling up my leg. So I kicked it and crushed it repeatedly beneath my boot. It wasn't until it was dead that it turned out to be a wizard. You should have seen my mom's expression. She isn't afraid of anything, but for months afterward, she was suspicious of every animal, small or large."

They gaped at him.

Wormtail was dead.

Their son had killed Peter Pettigrew. It was a fitting end but…

"You killed him?" Dumbledore asked, accusation in his voice. Dumbledore, ever the man of second chances, looked appalled.

"Yeah," Harry said, "I did. It was a hassle rolling that fat creep off the train. And no, I don't feel bad about it, it was self-defence. We checked his arms." He tapped his left forearm, "he was another Death Eater, another freaking assassin. I'm not going to apologize for killing him, nor would I apologize for killing a rat. The only thing rats are good for is snake food."

"Very Slytherin of you," Snape said, a little smugly.

But Harry seemed to know the relation between Death Eaters and that house because he said, "Death Eaters are Slytherins." And he gave Snape a look that said he had guessed, correctly, what Snape had once been.

Snape, however, smirked and the bastard said, "Peter Pettigrew, the rat you put out of its misery, was a Gryffindor, like your parents."

Harry's eyes narrowed at the bite in his voice, and he looked at James and Lily for confirmation, reluctantly they both nodded. Harry frowned, "You knew him personally."

They nodded again and Lily spat, "Peter betrayed us."

His green eyes went wide, "You were  _friends_  with him?"

"I didn't say that," she said.

"But it's the truth," he challenged. "You have poor taste in friends." His gaze slipped ever so briefly to Sirius.

This, James decided, wasn't going well.

"Harry, your mother and I have made mistakes, but we're your parents, we love you. We want you back in our lives, whatever that means."

A tension seemed to go out of Harry, and he sighed, his shoulders slumping.

What James wanted to hear was something along the lines of, 'I've wanted to meet you my entire life. I don't know you yet but I love you too.'

What they got was a look of pity.

Whoever this Natasha Romanoff was, either she had truly brainwashed him, or she had given him such a good life that he wanted for nothing, not materially or emotionally.

That someone had filled the void where James and Lily were supposed to be was agony, but James could admit, however reluctantly, that he would be grateful that his son had led a happy, loved filled life.

He was safe, alive and well, and if James kept telling himself that maybe it could ease the fears he had lived with over the last decade and more.

Harry said, "I would like to get to know you better, but you have to understand, I have a home, a family."

Lily reached out a hand, stepping forward, and James caught her around the waist, sensing that if she crowded Harry he might step back, might bolt. "We're your family."

"You are my biological family. And you might be good people, but biology doesn't dictate that I would have been better off with you."

Even Sirius didn't argue this time.

James tried again, "Please, Harry, all that we ask is that you give us a chance."  _And don't run away from us. Don't disappear._

Harry looked suddenly exhausted, and James remembered that the boy had faced a dragon today, Lily seemed to be on the same wavelength because she asked, "Are you okay? Were you hurt at all today?"

"No, I'm fine, it wasn't that hard really."

James blinked, in whose definition was  _dragon_  not hard?

"You could have been really hurt," Lily said, glaring at Dumbledore.

Harry shrugged, "Only if I messed up, which I didn't."

James had the distinct feeling that he had a lot to learn about his son.

"Perhaps," Flitwick ventured, "We should give it a rest for this evening. Dinner will start soon, and I'm sure," he gave James and Lily an apologetic look, "Mr. Romanoff needs to refuel and get a good night of sleep."

James swallowed the panic that even the thought of parting with Harry caused, but it was only sense. If they pushed much further tonight he might run again. That much was plain.

It had to be enough that he was safe and that they knew where he was.

* * *

Harry couldn't keep the relief off his face, he hadn't been prepared for this. He was completely blindsided by this series of events. And frankly, he had shared more than he wanted to. He didn't trust these people, and he wasn't comfortable with this interrogation.

He couldn't think what he wanted from his biological parents. He had never fantasized about them being alive. They were dead. It was him and Natasha against the world, that was the way it had always been. The idea that he had more family out there…

And suddenly he did have a question, "Do I have siblings?"

"No," James, his father said, and he looked defeated, as if he thought he didn't deserve more children.

Harry was done with this, these people were too emotional, wanted too much from him. He needed to get away from them, "My mom bought me the fourth year books. Can I attend classes here for the year? The letter said the tournament lasts the entire year."

Lily nodded, "Of course you can. Your tuition is already paid for."

Harry felt uneasy accepting anything from these people, "My mom can affor-"

"No," James cut him off, "we  _are_  your parents, whether you accept us or not, we can and have paid for your education."

Harry wanted away from them and could tell from the look on their faces that they wouldn't budge on this, "Thanks, so can I start classes with the others?"

"You will need a wand," Dumbledore said, "And we'll need to know what your magical education has been like before this, you said you're guardian was a witch, no?"

Harry stiffened, not liking the condescension in the Headmaster's voice. Harry twisted his hand, and all the little twirling trinkets on the old man's desk shattered, he opened his palm, the shiny shards stayed suspended like pieces of snowflakes caught in an upward draft, then he closed his fist, and all those objects remade themselves.

Everyone in the room gaped at him, apparently, that little parlour trick was impressive, wait until they saw what he could do with a shield charm. "I'm pretty good with wandless magic," he said, unable to keep the smugness from his voice.

"You'll need to be sorted," Professor Sprout spoke up.

Professor McGonagall asked, "It involves putting on the Sorting Hat, would you rather be sorted here, or in front of the other students?"

"Here," he answered, not wanting to be any more of a spectacle. He would be happy to get some time to himself to digest all that had happened.

He had one week to figure out how to explain this to Mom.

McGonagall walked over to a shelf and pulled down a beat up hat. "Have a seat," she instructed.

"I can stand and wear a hat at the same time," Harry said dryly, letting his Russian accent thicken, making the words mocking even though his tone didn't change.

The muscles around her eyes tightened, and his parents' postures shifted.

No, they didn't like that he was a foreigner, not at all. He hadn't lied when he said he was more Russian than British, and though he had never lived long enough in any one country to claim kinship with, he was what his mother was, and Natasha Romanoff, at her core was Russian, and perhaps a bit Russian-American, which is how Harry saw himself.

The hat was lowered over his head, and it slipped over his eyes. He didn't jump when a voice exclaimed in his head, though it was a near thing.

_Oh my! My dear, dear Romanoff, the worlds you've seen._

Harry didn't try to speak back though he worried what the hat might share to these people. He didn't want his private life known to them.

_I want to say a word to them, my job is to sort, nothing more, the Headmaster won't get a word from me. I swear it, Mr. Romanoff._

Harry relaxed, and stood still, letting himself retreat into his own thoughts while no one was trying to question him.

About ten minutes passed before the hat growled,  _I can't decide, I can't decide! You are such an even mix of Slytherin and Gryffindor. I think, from your memories, I would place your mother in Slytherin, but you are somewhat like your biological parents too, and you would do well in Gryffindor. But you might truly shine in Slytherin. You can talk to snakes, you would get on well there. They aren't as bad as their reputation._

Harry shrugged, and thought at the hat,  _I'm fine with whatever. Do you think I will do well here?_

_My boy! You will do fantastic here. So much power… you might flounder a bit in the beginning, but I know you will surpass all expectations. The question is, do you want glory or acceptance more?_

_Neither,_  Harry thought,  _I came here to keep my magic and learn. I don't care what anyone else thinks of me. I would be happy if they didn't notice me at all._

The hat laughed aloud,  _Well then, I guess my first estimation was mistaken, it must be - "_ RAVENCLAW."

Professor McGonagall lifted that hat off, and she was smiling at him as was Professor Flitwick, who was, Harry realized,  _his_  head of house.

"You were a Hatstall," the Headmaster said, and Harry couldn't tell if he was pleased or not.

"It was undecided between Slytherin or Gryffindor, said I was a perfect split, then decided on Ravenclaw as the tiebreaker," he answered.

They looked surprised at that.

"Well," Professor Flitwick said, standing to his feet, he was shorter on his own two feet then in the chair, "I'll take you down to dinner."

* * *

Lily was beside herself, she wanted to cling to her son and never let him go. But the rational part of her brain told her that she would lose him again if she tried anything of the sort.

They had been so close to finding him, so many times, the magic had worked, but still, he had slipped past them.

Herself, James, and Sirius were three of the best Aurors in the country. It rankled that this Natasha Romanoff might be better. Though, if they killed the Death Eaters they met, not that Lily mourned that skum, then it meant that Natasha Romanoff maybe wasn't the most moral person.

Filius gave them sympathetic looks, but went for the exit, Harry followed without preamble.

Her heart got stuck in her throat, "Good night, Harry."  _I love you._

"Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Potter," he said, hardly pausing before following Flitwick out of the room.

She couldn't breathe.

James hugged her from behind and she didn't know what she would have done without her husband's arms, his support, knowing that he was feeling everything she felt.

"Well," Sirius said, "at least he's alive."

Lily jerked away from James and smacked the fleabag over the back of the head, James smacked him too.

"You idiot! You didn't use a lick of tack!" Lily exclaimed.

"You should have kept your mouth shut," James backed her up.

Lily turned on Severus, "And you were not much better," she pointed at Dumbledore next, "Or you. Did none of you think we deserved a private moment with our son?"

Minerva shook her head, "It probably would have been best if you hadn't met him today at all. He thought you were dead."

"And he didn't seem thrilled to see us alive," James said darkly.

"He must be exhausted," Pomona defended.

"How did his First Task go?" James asked, "He looked a little dusty, did he need to see Poppy at all?"

"No, he was completely unharmed. He was phenomenal," Minerva said, "He didn't use any magic, he just ran at it."

Lily's heart stopped, "Hey ran at a dragon?"

"Without a wand," Sev offered helpfully.

She was going to kill them all. "How could you let him compete!?"

"He jumped on the Horntail's head," Minerva continued, not answering her question.

"A Horntail?" James asked, his voice sounding breathy.

Minerva went on, "He held onto one of its head spikes, then slipped under her belly, snagged an egg, crawled out behind it, then scaled one of the stands. Not a scratch, not the tiniest bit singed. He was the quickest out of any of the champions and he did all without magic."

_With_  magic, what was their son capable of?

James noted, "He was able to wield his magic without a wand or a spoken spell."

What else was Harry capable of? Aloud, she asked, "Does anyone know of or even heard of Natasha Romanoff?"

They all shook their heads, but Dumbledore said, "I'll contact the Russian school."

James took her hand, "Lils, we should go home."

She did not want to leave. She wanted to go down to the Great Hall and be with her son. She wanted to hold him, Merlin help her, she would be happy just to stare at him.

But she knew that wouldn't help matters, knew that they couldn't stay here. They had to prove themselves to Harry, and giving him space was a part of that.

Seeming to think that she was going to argue, James said, "We can regain custody, Lils, but we need to go home for tonight."

"No," she said, her throat so tight it hurt to speak, "he'll be an adult in less than three years. If we force anything on him, he'll run." If she had learned anything about Harry tonight, it was that.

James wrapped her in another hug, and she felt the weight of the world began to crash around her.

What in the world were they supposed to do next?

* * *

AN: Comments, reactions, thoughts, or wishes meant for shooting stars that are really shrapnel from space trash collisions? Please?


	5. Sticks and Spiders

KEYNOTE: I will be bringing in more Marvel at some point, this plot gets trippy ;)

* * *

 

Chapter 5 - Sticks and Spiders

Harry was so tired he just wanted to eat and collapse. No part of him wanted to socialize, but he was hungry enough that it was worth it.

"You ready?" Professor Flitwick asked.

_No,_  he wasn't, but he was hungry, so he nodded.

He was a stress eater, or as his mom liked to say, a black hole disguised as a teenager.

He always blamed her for his fast metabolism, he trained harder than most professional athletes. Not that he minded, Harry enjoyed working out, loved being outdoors, and like an average boy, he did like sports. He also enjoyed being one of the best no matter what ring he jumped into.

The professor opened the doors to the Great Hall, and the noisy room fell silent.

Harry stared at the students, divided by four tables, a head table was adjacent to those tables at the back of the hall. The other professors and staff sat there, staring at him like the rest. The ceiling… the ceiling was nothing short of incredible, enchanted to reveal the starry sky with hundreds of candles suspended in the air.

Professor Flitwick sighed, then said in a projected volume, "Mr. Romanoff was sorted into Ravenclaw."

The room broke out in cheers and applause. Two redheads bellowed, "Dragon Jumper!"

Following the professor, Harry had no trouble locating the Ravenclaw table, as they were by far the loudest.

He heard one of student grouch from the far left table, "At least it wasn't Gryffindor. I can get behind a Ravenclaw champion."

Harry paused by a group of blue tied students that looked about his age, two pretty girls, one bushy-haired and the other with lush dark hair, parted to make a seat for him.

Professor Flitwick paused to give him a smile over his shoulder before continuing to the head table.

Sitting down, Harry tried to take in everything around him at once, it was difficult, he had been in crowds before, but he had never had the attention of so many people before while sitting down with them.

He noted that the line of students on the other side of this table weren't wearing black robes, but pale blue ones. The girl immidately across from him gave him a shrewd look and said, almost hostility, "Bonjour, my name is Fleur Delacour. I am the champion from the French School, Beauxbatons."

Her Parisian accent told him she was likely from a suburb in Paris, so he answered back in Parisian French, flavouring his words with a Russian lilt. It was kind of fun, and both languages were meant to be smooth, well as compared to English and German, "Je m'appelle Harry Romanoff. Enchantée." He held out her hand to her.

She blinked at him, then smiled beautifully, and shook his hand in a firm grip, "Enchanté, Monsieur Romanoff."

"You're French?" the girl to his right asked.

"Non," Fleur answered, "He's Russian."

He nodded, "And you are?"

The girl flushed, "Hermione Granger, it's nice to meet you."

The girl on the other side of him said, "And I'm her best friend, Padma Patil."

Harry smiled at them both, "You wouldn't happen to be fourth years would you?"

Padma smirked, "We are, though Fleur isn't, she is a legal adult, seventeen year old in her final year."

_Seventeen?_  Harry wondered.

"You weren't supposed to be able to compete unless you were of legal age," Hermione informed him, "Of course, your name showing up at all was odd. You're a legend."

"A dead legend," Padma muttered, "No one, well, except for the Potters, thought you were alive."

People around them starting to eat even as the twisted in the seats to stare at him and eavesdrop. He started pulling food on his own plate. He sipped from a glass of some orange liquid, it turned out to be pumpkin juice.

Interesting. But not bad, not bad at all.

"Why am I a legend?" he asked, then took a bit of a forkful of something warm and steamy. He tried very hard not scarf it down. Small, slow bites.

"You're the Boy Who Lived," Hermione said, sounding surprised he didn't know, "You survived the killing curse. No one survives the killing curse. Not ever. You're the only one, thus you became a legend."

Harry paused to stare at her, trying to picture the two people he met today spreading that rumour around.

He couldn't. Especially, since they had apparently survived it too.

"Is the scar really shaped like a lightning bolt?" a boy asked a few seats down.

Harry felt suddenly subconscious, "How do you know about the scar?"

The boy, who was leaning so far forward, he had only to turn his head to kiss the roasted chicken, said, "Well, it's on your forehead, isn't it?"

Harry frowned, and his expression must have been darker than he meant it to be because the boy apologized and sat back.

Fleur asked, "Ça va?"

He shook his head and turned back to Hermione, "So according to you, I'm a legend because I am the  _only_  person to survive the killing curse, and somehow, this legend includes that I have a scar on my face?"  _Despite the fact that the only person to know that should be my Mom, well my real mom, Natasha._  His birth parents never saw him again after Voldemort cursed him. Well, his assains clearly knew he existed and had quite possibly seen his scar, but it hardly seemed likely that Voldemort's supporters would make Harry out to be some kind of hero. Which led him to another question, "Is Voldemort dead?"

He knew the Death Eaters didn't believe he was, but then they were all bat-shit.

Everyone around him gasped, a few people even looked as if they would faint. Hermione's face was the picture of shock, while Padma and Fleur watched him carefully.

"What?" he asked.

"You aren't supposed to say his name," Hermione entoned, as if it were some law he had just spat at.

"Why?" he asked, then teased, "Is it magic?"

"No, but he did such horrible things, that people still fear his name to this day," Padma explained.

He turned to her, "So what do you call him?"

"He Who Must Not Be Named, or You Know Who."

Harry kept his face neutral, but he thought that was next level stupid. Bad things happened in the world, not talking about them, not naming them, meant that they were never understood. Historically speaking, political campaigns, bloody and ugly, that were not understood, tended to repeat themselves.

"Right," he said, "but he is dead?

"Oui, that's why you are a legend," Fleur explained, "because you not only survived the killing curse, but you destroyed him."

" _I_  destroyed the Dark Lord?" Harry repeated, his lips twitching.

"Yes, you did," Hermione told him, as if she were telling him some undeniable truth. "You saved the United Kingdoms, he would have destroyed the Wizarding World as well as the mug-"

Harry laughed aloud, he couldn't help it, maybe if he wasn't so tired... but  _jeez_  that was just too much. He knew the Wizarding World was weird but this was cracked.

Hermione crossed her arms, "What's so funny?"

Everyone was staring at him now, and the other Heads of House and Dumbledore were entering the room, his birth parents must have left.

He  _hoped_  they had, he didn't need another over-protective guardian.

The thought of having to tell his Mom about the Potters sobered him, but he still said, "It's not funny, it's  _hilarious_  that people believe a  _baby_  defeated a Dark Lord."

Hermione glared him, and he decided that she really didn't like to be told she was mistaken.

Tough shit, lady.

"That's why it's legendary. No one can explain it, but the facts remain that a baby survived a killing curse  _and_  You Know Who was vanquished, that's magic, magic in its rawest form," she said.

Harry shook his head, and took another bite of food, chewed, swallowed, and then said, "Or maybe, and this is a super far fetched, illogical thought, but maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with the two adult magic users in the house. But I'm sure that can't  _possibly_  be it. It was  _definitely_  the baby."

Some kid behind him who had been eavesdropping chimed in, "But it had to be you! You're Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. You proved that today, facing a dragon without using magic, how else would you prove  _that?_ "

Harry felt like he had just landed on some alien planet from his mother's stories. Did that boy even hear himself? Harry wasn't even sure how to reason with that kind of dumb.

Fleur spoke up, clearly having read some of his thoughts on his expression, "I saw your trial, you did very well."

He smiled, "Thanks. It was kind of fun."

"Fun?" Padma asked.

"My mom and I do extreme hiking, trust me, magma can kill you just a surely as dragon fire."

"Your mom had you hiking on volcanoes?" Hermione asked.

He shrugged, "You never know when the earth will crack beneath your feet, it's a useful thing to know how to handle yourself around that kind of heat. Besides some of the most beautiful islands on the planet were created by volcanoes."

People were starting to get up and Harry made it point to finish his plate and get some dessert before curfew.

An older Ravenclaw boy came around to him, introducing himself as a. prefect, and began to explain to Harry some of the basic rules.

He tried paying attention, he really did, but when he was introduced to his new bed, he hardly had the energy to change into pyjamas before slipping between the sheets.

Tomorrow would be a rough day, the prospect of his first day of magical school not half so daunting as telling his mom his other mom was still alive.

He couldn't wait a week, he would have to tell her tomorrow night.

* * *

Remus was rather irked to receive the morning paper.

The NEWS was that not only was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, truly  _alive_  but he had competed in the Triwizard tournament, receiving the highest mark against a dragon. And apparently, he hadn't used magic either.

Nothing in the article speculated about Lily or James, they were probably saving that for the next issue of  _Family Reunited._

Remus apparated first to Sirius' place pounding on the door, then he crossed the hall to pound on James and Lily's flat door.

Sirius opened the door, looking tired.

"You couldn't have sent an owl? Anything?" Remus demanded.

Sirius shook his head, and said in a low voice, "They haven't slept, they haven't said a word. They just pace or stare off into space."

Remus pushed past him, it always surprised him how bad Sirius could be at handling emotional crises. He was actually pretty good in the moment, though there were those who would argue that, but afterwards? Afterwards, he was like a lost puppy looking for approval.

Lily was staring out the window, James standing in the kitchen, both looked like robots, disconnected from life.

"Harry's alive," Remus stated.

Sirius rolled his eyes, "You don't think I tried that. Also, while we're on the topic, I should mention, Pettigrew is dead."

Remus turned on him, "What did you say?"

"Pettigrew," Sirius repeated, locking the door behind him, "Is. Dead."

"How?"

"Harry killed him. Said the worm tried crawling up his leg and he killed that rat like a rat."

Remus gaped at him, poor Harry… "He must have been traumatized when he turned back into a human."

Sirius shrugged, "He seemed more pissed about it, to be honest with yo-  _Would you two wake up!?"_

Neither Lily nor James so much as twitched a pinkie finger.

Sirius sighed, "I guess I should be grateful they didn't try going into work."

"Have they ever taken a day off?" Remus asked.

"Nope," he answered, popping the p, "Well, yes, but tracking Harry isn't exactly time off from work."

"So where was he?"

Sirius sighed again, disapparated, and when he returned he had a large bottle of alcohol with him and four glasses. "Now that he's safe, we can drink at the Potters," he said it triumphantly.

Remus frowned at him, "It is too early to drink."

"Speak for yourself," Sirius said, pouring himself a healthy measure, or an unhealthy measure, depending on how you looked at it, "I haven't slept a wink yet, neither have they. Lily-Flower!" He yelled suddenly, "James! Come have a drink or go the fuck to bed."

James seemed to partially come alive at this, and walked into the living room stiffly. Neither he nor Lily drank, fearing becoming alcoholics with the shit hand they had been dealt.

But now James took the glass Sirius offered him, and tipped it back in one gulp. He made a sour expression.

Remus thought it was from the taste and strength until, James said with such loathing in his voice it scared Remus, "Vodka."

"Do you not like Vodka?" Remus asked.

"It's Russian," James said, expression dark and distant.

"What's wrong with Russia?"

"Harry's Russian," Lily said, drifting over, and sitting down on the floor beside Sirius. She put her head on his shoulder and he put an arm around her.

"It's okay Lils, we'll convert him to our empire."

She shut her eyes, then said to Remus, "He wasn't just in Russia, he was everywhere, and all our tracking spells worked, we just missed him."

"Who took him?" Remus asked.

"A Russian," James spat.

_Okay,_  Remus thought, "And have you met this Russian?"

Lily shook her head against Sirius's shoulder, "Natasha Romanoff. And he loves her."

"He took her name," James said angrily. "He says he's not a Potter, he's a Russian."

"You going to have to let the Russian thing go," Remus said jokingly, "It makes you sound like a nationalist."

James met his gaze, and Remus flinched, the look in those hazel eyes... "Our Harry said he is Harry  _Romanoff_ , he doesn't want anything to do with us."

"He didn't care that we were alive," Lily said so softly, Remus almost didn't hear her.

Sirius gave him a desperate look.

Remus stood up, "Alright, that's enough." He pulled his wand and disappeared the offending vodka.

"Hey!" Sirius protested.

Remus shook his head, "No, enough pity party. You three have been stuck in 1981 for the last thirteen years. Harry's alive, and despite being 'Russian,' he sounds like he's doing just fine."

Lily looked at him sadly, "He doesn't need us. He doesn't want us."

"Bullshit," Remus snapped.

James turned on him, "Don't you swear at her. You have no idea-"

"Did he know?"

"Did he know what?"

"Did he know you were alive and looking for him, or did you both drop down all this information on him without warning, claiming to be his real parents?"

James glared at him.

Remus sighed, "If his adoptive family loved him, then  _of course_ , he would be wary of you both. He isn't a little kid anymore, you both probably freaked him out. But no matter how happy his childhood was, every kid wants to know who their birth parents were or  _are_."

Lily just shook her head.

"Stand up," Remus demanded, "Lily, stand up."

"Why?" she asked listlessly.

"We need to get this place cleaned up, and maybe go furniture shopping."

"Why?" Lily repeated.

"Because I have been in storage rooms with more personality than this flat. Do you really want to bring your son over here for dinner with the choice of a love seat sofa or an office chair to sit in? He's going to think your both dull workaholics."

"They  _are_  dull workaholics," Sirius said cheerfully.

James frowned at him, "No, we're not."

"Really?" Remus challenged, "Then find three objects in this apartment that aren't grey, black, or white."

Lily sat up, looking around, then pointed at the medium sized bookshelf.

"Lily dear," Remus said gently, "The books on that shelf that aren't spell books for tracking or potions, are handbooks for Aurors."

She frowned, then seemed to see where she had been living for the first time since leaving Godric's Hollow.

Her mouth seemed to open in a small 'O' of surprise.

It was a one bedroom apartment, with one couch, one bookshelf, two office desk with two lamps, and two office chairs. They were all some shade of grey, black, or white.

And they all knew that their clothes selection did not improve the matter. Their kitchen was clean but characterless. No decorations were hung on the walls, and the only pictures sat on their desks. One of baby Harry, one of the Dursely's, and the other two of their deceased parents.

"James?" Lily said, sounding lost, "I think we should move."

James sighed, "Whatever you say Lils."

Sirius and Remus exchanged a long look. This was going to be a long road. Even if Harry wanted to be with his birth parents, Lily and James weren't in any condition to take care of another person.

Remus didn't know if it would make things worse or better when they realized that for themselves.

* * *

Harry was somewhat of a deep sleeper, unless someone yelled or something touched him. His mom usually woke him, either by touching his hair or his ankle.

What he was not in any way used to was a stranger, grabbing his arm, shaking him, and yelling, "Wake up, Potter!"

The boy, whose name he learned later that morning was Michael Corner, ended up with a broken nose and bruised tailbone. Harry had dressed quickly in his new robes, then half helped, half carried, Corner to the medical wing.

Madam Pomfrey had greeted with, "Great, you're another James, just what this school didn't need. You stay away from the Weasley twins, you hear me?"

Harry didn't know what this meant, but having missed breakfast, he ran to his first class, taking two wrong turns, and just making it inside before the bell rang.

Professor McGonagall didn't acknowledge him as he slid into a seat beside Padma.

"Did you really attack Corner?" Hermione asked him after McGonagall gave her instructions.

Instructions, that to Harry's mind made no sense.

"I was deeply asleep," he muttered, pulling out his textbook and flipping to the right page.  _Hedgehog to Pincushion_.

Harry frowned, the Latin made sense, the process of the magic did not. Harry had always imagined magic to be like an energy, a force to be wielded, but turning one living creature into an inanimate object?

Would the hedgehog die? What if he messed up? How did he even begin?

Harry didn't do transfiguration. He'd read about it, of course, but it seemed to be a magic, or at least the spells -this one included, that required a wand.

His mom had managed a few of these kinds of spells, but she did have a wand.

"Mr. Po-" Professor McGonagall stopped herself, "My apologies, you are the spitting image of your father. Mr. Romanoff, go ahead and try, there is no shame for mistakes here."

By the expressions on his classmates' faces, he very much doubted that. Taking one last look at the spell, he focused on his hedgehog, waved his hand over it.

The hedgehog sneezed.

Hermione and Padma giggled.

Harry gave the professor a sheepish smile, and batted his green eyes at her, hoping she would console his ego and leave him to his own devices.

But Professor McGonagall was not so easily charmed, "You're Latin is flawless, but without a wand you don't have the focus to manage the transition." She pulled out her own wand and demonstrated the spell and the correct wand movements. Harry memorized it, but still didn't quite understand the logistics of the magic.

She offered him her wand, "Try it, I'll speak with the Headmaster about getting you to Ollivander's shop soon."

Knowing it would be an insult to refuse such an offer, he gingerly took the wand, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room on him. That was going to get old fast.

The wand felt dangerous and unfriendly, he had been more comfortable holding poisonous snakes than this wand.

He felt its power, and he feared touching it with his own. Squaring his shoulders and bringing his breathing under control, he focused on the poor little hedgehog.

It was rather cute.

Harry said the words, following the demonstrated wand movements, but he felt it the moment his magic met the wand's magic.

And then he was being blown backward, only years of training had him rolling over the desk rather than crashing into it. The bang from the backlash of power rang in the room and the clatter of the wand, sounded like a pencil, a harmless stick settling on the floor.

Harry hated wands.

Professor McGonagall twisted her wrist, her wand coming to her hand like a puppy. "Are you alright, Mr. Romanoff?"

He stood, Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein looking almost as worried as Hermione, but Padma, the witch, was holding a hand to her mouth trying not to laugh at him.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Maybe for today," she said, accepting he was okay only after carefully watching him reclaim his seat without any signs of pain, "you should just watch, and perhaps read some older material. I have some spare first, second, and third year books."

Harry kept his expression controlled, and he said, "Thank you." The words almost came out in Russian, and he wondered to himself if maybe Russian was his default accent. He had never been in one place long enough to 'imprint' on a place and he was always aware of the accent he used.

But this was one of the first times he was making an effort to  _not_  sound like the people around him.

When Professor McGonagall moved on, Padma asked, "So Romanoff, do you think you you're going to keep Madam Pomfrey busy this term?"

He smiled at her, "Why would I need Madam Pomfrey when I have you, Ms. Patil?"

Harry didn't let his smile grow when she turned quickly back to her hedgehug, and she muttered, "Dunderhead."

People, Mother had taught him, were always easier to manipulate if they've never been flirted with before.

* * *

"Wow," Hermione noted at lunch, "you eat so politely I almost didn't notice how much food you put down."

"I missed breakfast," he said after swallowing a bite.

Corner glared at him from down the table.

"First day not going well?" Fleur asked too sweetly, batting her lashes at him.

He smiled back, "It's just peachy keen."

"Peachy keen?" she asked confused.

"American saying," he said.

"I thought you were Russian?" Hermione asked.

Padma answered before he could, "I don't think what our Romanoff is can be summed up in a word."

Harry couldn't tell if she meant it as a compliment or an insult, so he ignored it.

* * *

Potions was his next class and he was… completely lost.

Mom and he ate out, all the time. They had the money and food culture was a very real thing. They didn't often go out to fancy places, they found the local places, and when they were hiking they ate food packaged for carbs and vitamins.

Sure they bought fruit, vegetables, and bread, but Harry would hardly call a sandwich and an orange 'knowing how to cook.'

Thus, Harry read the textbook while Hermione did all the work.

"Aren't you going to help?" she asked.

"Do you want to fail?" he shot back.

This class they shared with the Hufflepuffs and in addition to doing all the work for their potion, Hermione was also helping out the group beside them.

A round faced boy with a sweet smile, after finishing up the various types of cutting and skinning, turned to Harry as his partner finished the final steps.

"Hi, I'm Neville Longbottom."

Harry shook his hand, "Harry Romanoff."

"My parents are friends with your parents," Neville informed him, "They come over for dinner a lot. They work in the same office."

Harry wasn't jealous that this boy knew his parents better than him, he told himself. His parents who were emotional wrecking balls that were going to rain all over his life.

His stomach tightened, he had been thinking about it all day, and he still didn't know how to break the news to Mom. He also needed to sneak out of the castle tonight, this wasn't exactly something he could put in a letter.

"You know," Neville said kindly, "It's not everyone who has  _two_  Auror parents like us."

Harry tilted his head, "What's an Auror?"

Neville's partner sneered, "You don't know what an  _Auror_  is? Guess you really were raised by a muggle."

"Shut up, Ernie," Neville said, "Don't mind him. Aurors are the wizard police."

Harry thought back to what he had said to his parents last night. Damn. He must have really hit some nerves. But still, why hadn't they gone to the magical police? It wasn't like a Death Eater would have raised him as their own, they all wanted him dead.

And he still didn't understand  _why_  people wanted him dead.

Speaking of Death Eaters, Professor Snape came around their tables, "Mr. Longbottom, Mr. Romanoff, your partners shall fail for the day if you do not participate."

Neville shot Harry a smile before rejoining Ernie. Harry went to Hermione's side, waiting for instruction, he wasn't even sure where she was in the cooking - _brewing_  process.

Without looking up she said, "Add three leaves of dittany."

What the hell was dittany?

Picking up one of the green things on the table, he asked, "This?"

She glanced up before going back to her text, she nodded.

Tearing off three leaves Harry plopped them into the pinkish liquid, he watched them sink in, and his heart rate skyrocketed when the potion turned sickly orange and began to bubble like an overflowing washer in the laundromat.

Harry grabbed Hermione around the waist, yelled, "Everybody down!"

He turned, shielding Hermione with his body as the potion exploded with a loud metal bang.

The professor rushed over, wand raised, the potion disappeared, students raised up from under the tables warily.

Hermione pushed away from him, and asked angrily, "What did you do!?"

"What you told me to do," Harry said back, calmer but non-too happy himself. He held up the plant still in his hands, "Three leaves."

"Of dittany!" she exclaimed, "That's mallowsweet!"

He gritted his teeth, "I ask-"

"Mr. Potter," the professor called.

Harry spun on the man, "Romanoff, my name is  _Romanoff_."

The man sneered, "Yet you're as arrogant as your father,  _Potter_. Twenty points from Ravenclaw." He turned to look at the wide eyed Hufflepuffs, "it would appear, Mr. Longbottom, we have found a student whose sunk to a new level of abysmal, not even you have melted a cauldron before."

Neville didn't move, he looked like he was holding his breath.

Harry glared at the professor, wondering if he was an ex-Death Eater or spy. Harry didn't know much about the wizarding world, for instance, that 'Auror' was their word for police, but Harry knew what their skum looked like.

"Mr. Potter, if you do not improve by next class, then I will move you down to the first year class."

"Whatever you think is best," Harry said, knowing in this instance his accent likely made him sound stupid to their ears. A thought that confirmed by the pitying looks his classmates gave him and the mirthful light in those onyx eyes, "But my name is Romanoff."

"Ms. Granger, pack up your things, you're done for the day." He waved his wand at the cauldron which repaired itself.

Hermione glared at Harry and he was at a loss as to what to do. The bell rang not long after and he had to run to catch up to her.

"Hermione, wait," he said, "I'm sorry, that-"

"Was an embarrassing disaster, I have never messed up a potion until  _you_."

And with that she stormed off.

Padma patted his shoulder, "Come on, Romanoff, she won't stay mad forever. It's only your first day, she will understand."

Yeah, and it wasn't going well.

* * *

After dinner, Professor Flitwick came to him, "Professor McGonagall set up a meeting with Mr. Ollivander for tonight, I think it is safe to say you need a wand?"

Harry nodded, though he thought maybe what he needed was to be with the first years. And he said as much.

Flitwick shook his head, "Your magic is too far developed, it will just be a learning curve I'm afraid."

"Wait?" Harry asked, "Are we going to London?"

Flitwick nodded, as they exited the castle.

"Yes," he answered, "We will apparate once we reach the border to Hogsmeade."

"Can my Mom come with us? She's staying at the Three Broomsticks."

"Of course," he said, smiling.

* * *

Filius was worried about Harry, from all accounts, his first day had not gone well. He wondered what his mother, who was supposedly a witch as well had taught him.

They found the witch in question at the bar, and she was not at all what Filius had expected. She was uncommonly beautiful, her hair a dark red, her eyes a cat green, not the emerald of Harry's and Lily's but still remarkable.

"Mom," Harry greeted, sounding relieved to see her and hugging her tightly. She hugged him back, kissing the top of his head.

The look she gave him when they parted, both loving and looking for injuries, told Filius better than any words could that she cared for him. That they cared for each other.

Any plans his birth parents or and Dumbledore had about separating them was a fool's game.

"Mom, this is my Charms professor Flitwick, he's also my Head of House, Ravenclaw. Professor Flitwick, this is my mom, Natasha Romanoff."

She shook her hand, and somehow, was able to make the gesture natural and respectful, despite the height difference.

Filius liked her already.

"We need to go to London, to get your son a wand."

She smiled, "Those, historically, have not worked well for him."

"Professor McGonagall, the Transfiguration professor, had me borrow hers for a spell," Harry said.

"Did it work?" she asked.

He grinned, "Nope, it sent me flying backwards."

She smiled but shook her head, then asked, "How do we get to London? Harry said the train only runs four times a year."

Filius frowned, "We apparate."

"Apparate?" they asked together.

He was beginning to have doubts that she was a witch after all, "Teleportation."

They blinked at him and then a look of dawning comprehension came over their faces. "The popping!" they exclaimed.

"How do you do it?" Natasha asked.

"Well, they do offer classes in London at the Aurors office, you need a license."

"Can you apparate anywhere? And is there a way to get rid of the noise?" she asked.

Filius wasn't sure he liked her less, however, he was somewhat concerned about this line of questioning, "No, not anywhere, and I'm not sure about the noise. I've never thought about it."

"I would like directions to the Aurors office," she said.

"Aurors are the police," Harry informed her.

Filius had to ask, "Ms. Romanoff, I was under the impression you were a witch. Did you never attend school?"

She shook her head, "I didn't have magic until I found Harry."

That answer was deeply concerning. And it was odd, Filius could feel her energy, he wouldn't think she was so weak that she wouldn't know she was magical until taking in a child. And what did she mean exactly that she 'found' Harry.

"Well, tonight we have a meeting with Mr. Ollivanders." He wouldn't be giving her directions to the Aurors' office, he couldn't imagine what would happen if she walked into Lily or James's office.

Likely something explosive.

"How do we apparate?" Harry asked.

Filius held his hands out to each of them, "Merely take my hand, it will be side along apparition for you both."

They shared a look that seemed to say a lot with a little, and they took his hands.

Moments later they were standing outside of Ollivander's Wand shop, neither Harry nor Natasha looked ruffled by the trip.

Strong stomachs.

Mr. Ollivander greeted them with his usual invasiveness, though Harry corrected him, just as he corrected everyone else who tried to call him Mr. Potter.

"And this," Mr. Ollivander said, "is a friend of mine from Nigeria, he is also a wand maker of sorts, Mr. Bankole."

The big man nodded to them, and seemed to lean back to watch the show.

And show it was, because not only did wands seem not to work for Harry, but they seemed to actively dislike him.

His mother started spotting him to keep him from slamming into the walls.

"Alright, alright this wand, Holly, phoenix feather," Ollivander said, sounding peeved.

This wand was different than the others.

Instead of throwing Harry around the room or laying inert, it cracked up the centre.

With a yelp of pain, Harry dropped it and it burst into flame when it hit the ground.

Mr. Bankole began laughing and Natasha was glaring at Mr. Ollivander, who had the sense to stand well away from mother and son.

"I don't understand," the wandmaker muttered to himself.

Harry rubbed his hand that had red slashes across his palm and fingers. It hadn't broken the skin, but it didn't look pleasant.

"Was that supposed to happen?" Natasha asked harshly.

"No," Ollivander snapped, "No, it was not supposed to happen, I have never seen that before."

"I have," Mr. Bankole said in a deep sing song voice, "Mr. Romanoff, you wouldn't happen to be skilled with wandless magic would you?"

Harry nodded in affirmation.

"I brought some examples of my own work. I might not have your perfect fit with me, but if you find something that is more to your tastes, I can bring back more."

"They'll be pricey," Mr. Ollivander warned, "I'm guessing you brought your best work?"

The big man smiled, his white teeth a shock on his dark complexion, "Perhaps I did."

"I can afford it," Natasha said, "but if another one of these magical sticks throws my son across the room, I will throw  _you_  into the wall."

It sounded like she meant that literally, but Filius doubted that she could, what with her patchy magical training and her much smaller stature.

But Mr. Bankole seemed to take the threat seriously, nodding he said, "This won't toss him around. In most places on the African continent, we use raw magic and hand gestures, so our 'wands' are more focusing objects. They have less power of their own, though they are crafted to hold up against physical abuse as well as magical."

The first thing he gave Harry looked like a baton, and as Mr. Bankole had promised, it didn't throw him into a wall.

"Use it," Mr. Bankole commanded.

And Harry raised some of the objects on Mr. Ollivanders desk, a little shakily.

"Hmm," Mr. Bankole said, "I think you definitely need one of my creations, do you have any weapons you are skilled in?"

_Weapons?_  Filius thought nervously.

"A bo staff," Natasha answered for him.

Mr. Bankole's smile was brilliant, "Those of have, let's see, you said money was no object, yes?"

She nodded.

He pulled out a wooden circle, with a swirling pattern inlaid with black metal, placing it in Harry's palm, it grew into a staff taller than Harry.

Harry clearly knew how to use the thing as a muggle weapon, because he spun in around himself, and snapped it against the floor in an impressive sequence of motions.

Then he tried using a spell, the staff came alive, and everything in the room but for the people floated.

Then at Harry's motion, set down just as they had been, he said only, "Oh yes."

"May I?" Natasha asked.

Mr. Bankole nodded, and though there was no magic when Natasha held the staff, she too, used it like the weapon it might have been.

Filius guessed that the training Harry had was more muggle than magical.

"It has no power for me," she said, handing it back to Harry who twisted his wrist and the staff became a just a pretty wooden bracelet around his wrist. "But it is a fine staff," and she sounded more pleased about that, as if she rated her muggle defence above the magical.

She pulled out a wallet, "How much?"

Mr. Bankole smiled smugly, and Mr. Ollivander looked irked.

In fact, Filius had never seen the wand maker look so annoyed.

Filius kept it to himself that the staff wouldn't be much help for his classes at Hogwarts, the boy looked like he just found a new friend.

* * *

Harry asked professor Flitwick for a private moment, who went on ahead to the school, Harry promising he could find his way back in dark.

"Mom," Harry began.

She sighed, "Just tell me. I know something has been upsetting you, and it has nothing to do with your first day of school, that you still haven't told me anything about."

"Mom," he tried again, then said it fast, "My birth parents are alive."

She blinked at him, "Harry, you're parents are dead, Death himself told me. I saw your mother's dead body,  _you_  saw her die."

"She didn't stay dead, neither did my father. Apparently, they've been looking for me. But as Aurors, they only used magical means."

"You're serious?" she asked, "But why- why then would Death give you to me? He said if I didn't take you, you would be dead before you graduated from school."

"I don't know," he said, "But I met them last night."

Her face shut down, "Harry… oh my God, Harry, I'm so, so sorr-"

"Don't, Mom," he took her hands in his, "you are always going to be my mother. You and me against the world. Nothing will ever change that."

"Harry I would never have separated you from your parents-"

"I know that, and there's nothing to ask forgiveness for, I don't regret anything about my life. If I could change the past, I wouldn't."

"Harry," she cupped his face, her eyes were wet, "I love you."

He hugged her, "I love you, too."

After a while they parted, and she rubbed at her eyes, looking hurt.

"Don't blame yourself for this, this isn't your fault," he said.

Her smile was wane and he knew no matter what he said, that would be how she felt.

"I love you," she said again, "you better get back in there, remember, one week, then I scale the walls."

He wanted to comfort her, but he knew this was something she would need to sort out on her own before anything he said would matter.

"I love you," he repeated before turning back to the castle, his heart heavy.

* * *

Natasha watched Harry disappear and wanted nothing more than to scream, to rage.

_My birth parents are alive._

She was going to kill Death.

What kind of sick joke was this? Perhaps they were awful people unfit to be guardians? But Harry had met them  _last night_  and he would have mentioned if they were hateful people.

Natasha pulled on her hair, this couldn't be happening.

Unable to think she went for a run. She didn't know where her feet took her, but she did not pause. Keeping to the shadows, she circled that castle.

His parents were alive.

What did that make her? A kidnapper?

She entered the forest, her feet dancing over the fallen branches and leaves. She wasn't quiet, but she didn't trip.

How must his parents have felt? Waking up from a terrorist attack and finding their son, not dead, but missing? Too young to have left on his own, to fend in any way for himself, they must have been-

Suddenly, something with many legs, ran at her.

"Oh," it exclaimed, "dinner!"

Natasha's eyes had adjusted enough to see by the filtered moonlight. A giant talking spider approached her, wanting to eat her.

She smiled, and launched herself at it. It screamed when she ripped off one its legs and stabbed at its eyes with that limb.

More spiders came from the darkness,  _bigger_  spiders.

The monster inside her stretched like a cat, she pulled a blade. "Come and get it," she beckoned them.

* * *

Harry woke on his own in the morning, and finished his stretching routine before the other boys woke up.

He was determined that today would be a better one.

Hermione was still pissed at him during breakfast, but Fleur and Padma talked with him interestedly about his new 'wand.'

Their first class of the day was Care of Magical Creatures.

The professor of this class, a half-giant named Hagrid, was in tears when they showed up with the Hufflepuffs.

"What's wrong, Hagrid?" Hermione asked.

He blew into a tissue, "My spiders, my friends in the forest. Someone's killed them all, and the centaurs won't tell me whose murdered them."

"Spiders?" Harry asked.

"Acromantula," Hagrid said tearfully, "But that's not what class is on, we are starting off with-"

Padma shifted on her feet, she whispered to Harry, "Those eat humans."

"When were they killed?" Harry asked, interrupting the professor explaining what a blast-ended screwt was.

"Someone sliced them up last night. I don't know what kind of monster could have done such a thing. We won't have class in the forest this year until I know what it was."

"Oh, no," Padma said under her breath sarcastically, "I'm so disappointed."

Harry wasn't really concerned about the spiders, but he had a feeling he knew how his mother had taken the news.

At least he knew she wasn't keeping her feelings bottled up.

* * *

AN: Thoughts, reactions, ideas, or spiders? Please?


	6. Lost in the Crowd

 

Harry was not the biggest fan of the blast ended skrewts, but at least it was a subject he was not woefully behind in, or at least he was no less prepared than the rest of his classmates.

"Send anyone flying today, Harry?" Fleur asked.

He shook his head as Padma said, "Nope, and he won't for our next class either: Arithmancy."

"What classes do we have tomorrow?" Harry asked, knowing his schedule by heart now but hoping they would explain it to him. He had yet to explore the castle or find the library.

"Runes, which honestly might be the hardest class for you to catch up in, it's just a language, not really a magick. Also for tonight, we have Astronomy."

"Why do you learn Runes if it isn't a type of magic?" he asked.

Fleur answered, "Because a lot of old magic books are written in runes."

Harry nodded, and he, unlike Padma, was pretty confident he would do well in Runes. Even he wasn't sure anymore how many languages he knew.

As they were getting up, Hermione tugged on his sleeve, he turned, and saw something like shame on her face, "I'm sorry about yesterday, Harry. I just- I was an idiot. I should have paid better attention and helped you."

Harry looped his arm in hers, "Forgiven as long as you never leave me to my own devices in that class." He didn't know if he liked Hermione or not, but it was easy to forgive someone with social skills that made him look like an extrovert.

Hermione wasn't exactly quiet but she could be hyper focused, and while he could pretend to be as outgoing of the best of them, Harry prefered his books too.

Walking arm and arm out of the Great Hall they were stopped by a boy with an impressive shoulder span and a stern face.

Fleur came up beside him, "This is Viktor Krum, the champion for Durmstrang."

Before Harry or Viktor could say anything, Michael Corner, for some reason, still didn't like Harry, "Can you speak Bulgarian too, Potter?"

Harry took another look at Viktor and said in Turkish, "No, but I do speak Turkish."

Something like relief flashed over the other champion's face, and he answered, also in Turkish, "My Turkish is better than my English, and at Durmstrang they teach classes in Swedish." He held out his hand, "Viktor Krum, please call me Viktor."

Harry shook his hand, "Harry Romanoff, you can call me Harry. It is nice to meet you."

"What language was that?" Corner asked, sounding outraged.

"Turkish," Viktor answered in English, "the second most used language in Bulgaria." He switched back to Turkish, "I'm on my country's Quidditch team, almost half of my teammates speak Turkish or Romani."

Corner pushed passed them, and Harry made sure when the other boy tried jostling past, he got an elbow to his ribs for his trouble.

Boot caught his friend before he tripped over his own feet and said to them, "We're going to be late for class."

Viktor stepped out of their way, "Good day, Harry, Ms. Delacour, Ms. Granger."

Padma caught up to them as they headed up the stairs, she asked Hermione, "He knew your name."

Hermione flushed, "So what?"

Harry had seen the way Viktor looked at Hermione, and he shared a smirk with Padma who started to rave about how handsome the Quidditch star was.

Harry, having enough of being the dumb one in the room, didn't ask what Quidditch was.

oOo

Athiramancy confused Harry, he turned to Hermione and Padma after Professor Vector introduced the class and asked, "So it's math?"

"This isn't muggle nonsense," the younger vision of the blonde man they had met in the library sneered at him.

Hermione rolled her eyes, and nodded, "It's math, like algebra and statics had baby that you have to translate into a word problem consisting of current events."

"It can't be like muggle math," Padma said, pulling off one of the advanced books off of one of the shelves in the room, "look."

Harry flipped through the seventh year book and said, "Calculus and geometry with astronomy. Cool."

Padma looked down at the book, "No way, what about this?" she flipped to another page.

Harry smiled, "Geology, very cool." He flipped to the next page, "Environmental science. Why isn't this class mandatory?"

"It isn't environmental science," the blonde snarled, "It's the future."

Harry rolled his eyes, "Yeah, based on the rotation of the earth, tectonic plates, and ocean currents."

The boy gave him a blank look, then seemed to gain some self awareness, he held out his hand, "Draco Malfoy."

Not liking him but not wanting to make any outright enemies, Harry shook his hand, "Harry Romanoff."

Malfoy grinned as if he had just won some bet.

Harry was still planning to trip him.

By the end of class, he was on par with Hermione and Malfoy in the subject, his mom's homeschooling was more than enough to have him proficiency in muggle math and science, which for all Hogwarts professed, was Arithmancy, predicting the movements of the climate and geography of the earth.

oOo

As they were all on their way down to dinner, Harry noticed the twins who had called him 'Dragon Jumper' immerged from behind a tapestry.

"Who are they?" Harry asked Padma.

"The Weasley twins, Fred and George," she said, "They give twins everywhere a bad name. I'm so happy I wasn't sorted into Gryffindor with my sister. I love her, but I don't want to be the same person, not like those two."

He nodded but he was watching the two closely, Madam Pomfrey had warned him away from them, why? And where had they come from?

He guessed there was a secret passage behind that tapestry. He wondered if he befriended them if they would tell him. He watched one tap a piece of parchment and slip it into his bag.

Being told to stay away from someone, well being told by anyone but his mother, made him want to get to know them.

It was probably a character flaw, but his curiosity had served him well in the past.

oOo

Runes was the easiest out of his classes, seeing as the professor let them use the book and Harry was good with different grammars. It would probably take him a month or two to get it down to memory and then he was wondering what secrets he could discover in old wizard texts or if it would just be old people babbling.

Harry spent his free time reading his textbooks and trying to get caught up on his classes, Hermione lent him her old textbooks and class notes. Her class notes seemed to be a word for word what the teachers had said with further explanation from the text. It really was no wonder she was top of her year.

Astronomy, well, he quickly became one of Professor Sinistra's favourite students. Harry knew the stars, they had always caught his attention, and he loved how they changed depending on where he was on the planet, loved them more for stories his mother told him, for the galaxies far far away.

oOo

The next day, Herbology turned out to be more like Magical Creatures, he wasn't all that great at it, and he would probably fail a test, but he was no worse than anyone else at digging a hole and lowering a hostile plant into the ground.

Defence Against the Dark Arts, however, did not at all go the way Harry had predicted.

"Today," the weird eyed professor snarled, "we shall be reviewing the Imperious curse."

Everyone shuddered but Harry who had no idea what the 'Imperious curse' was. It was, of course, called a curse, so he assumed it was bad.

Professor Moody growled, "Potter, didn't your parents ever tell you the damage the Imperio can do? They are Aurors, they more than most would know the trouble it caused for the Ministry during after the war, nearly untrackable, turning friends against their every belief."

Harry glared at the bastard, "My name is Romanoff, and no, my birth parents didn't tell me about it, seeing I've only met them once."

The rest of the class shifted uneasily and Neville gave him a pitying look.

An odd expression crossed the professor decidedly odd facial features, "Your father is pureblood who married a muggleborn, and you're telling me you know nothing?"

Were these people stupid? Or just so set on their own reality that everything else was fiction? Harry repeated, "I don't know anything about my parents other than they aren't dead. I repeat, I only met them once."

The professor stared at him, and Harry wondered if the man had lost his brain along with his eye, "And your stepmother, is she a pure blooded witch?"

Hermione snapped, "What does that even matter?"

"It matters because his 'mother' kidnapped a child and for some reason has yet to be arrested by the Ministry."

Harry stood, fists clenched at his side, "Shut up, you know nothing,  _nothing_  about my mother and I."

The man looked at him, and for a moment he thought he might argue, might know something after all, but instead the man continued his lecture, "The Imperius can make a person your slave, make them do  _anything_  from making you walk into an open fire without protection to making you kill your loved ones. However, it is the only Unforgivable that can be fought against if you have the will for it."

Faster than a man of his age should be able to move, he pointed his wand at Harry and shouted, "Constant Vigilance! Imperio!"

He should have dodged but he threw out his own hand, a bright blue shimmering shield appearing between them.

The class gasped and Harry's eyes widened as the professors spell sparked right through his shield that could have fended off a ten ton elephant.

An invasive sense of calm fell over Harry, like jumping into a lukewarm lake on a hot day.

_Jump onto the desk and squawk._

Harry raised his gaze to the man, and dipped his fingers, twisting his wrist, and flung his palm out. His shield charm condensed and blew outward. The professor barely had time to register what had happened before he was being thrown backwards, he crashed into all the silly devices on and behind his desk. The false sense of peace broke like a bubble.

"Potter!" the man yelled.

But Harry had already grabbed his things, and was out the door before he had pulled himself to his foot and peg leg.

Harry was shaking, he was so… so angry. How dare he? How  _dare_  he!?

He went down to Professor Flitwick's class and waited to the side of the wall. Maybe coming to Hogwarts was a mistake. Sure, it was important to learn magic, but these people were crazy. God, how was he going to keep this from his mother? Should he even keep it from Mom?

She would freaking murder the professor.

He wondered what his birth mother's reaction would be? Maybe he should test the water with her.

Harry had gotten himself under control by the time the bell rang.

"Oi," said one of the emerging students, "It's Dragon Jumper."

Harry dipped his head, "Weasley Twin."

His brother jostled behind him a moment later, and exclaimed, "Romanoff!" He took Harry hand shook it wildly and gushed, "It's the Boy Who Lived, our Champion! I'm such -suuuuch a big fan!"

Harry took his hand back, "And you are?"

He smirked, "The other Weasley Twin."

Harry raised a brow, "George or Fred?"

They both grinned at him, and the first said, "You think you can tell us apart? Not even our mother can do that."

Harry crossed his arms, "Tell me the truth now and I will be."

The second grinned wickedly, "Fred," pointed to the first, "George."

"You're blocking the way idiots!" someone behind him shouted.

The twins bowed to Harry in unison then skipped off down the hall.

Yeah, Harry thought, those two are definitely trouble.

None of the other students stopped to chat with him, and when the last had exited Harry entered the room.

"Mr. Romanoff," Professor Flitwick greeted warmly, "How are you?"

Harry shrugged and the professor asked, "Or perhaps the question I should be asking is why you are here? Our first class together is tomorrow."

Harry didn't waste any time, "I attacked Professor Moody, I came here before he pulled himself off the floor."

Flitwick gaped at him and asked in shock, "Er... why would you do that, Mr. Romanoff?"

"Because he threw an Imperius Curse at me after telling us it could be used to enslave people to the point of killing loved ones or suicide. He told me to jump on the table, but no one attacks me out of a ring. I don't care if it was a lesson, no one has the right to attack me without my consent."

Flitwick's expression changed from shock to anger, he asked softly in a dangerous tone, "He used the Imperius Curse, Imperio, on a student?"

"Yes," Harry said.

Flitwick was quiet for a moment, death still, the same type of still his mom got when she was planning something.

"Professor," Harry said casually, "I threw up a shield charm in time, do you know why his curse went through it?"

Flitwick's dark eyes focused on Harry and his face softened, "Shield charms don't work on the Unforgivables, Imperio, Crucio and, as you say, the A.K. Either someone or something must physical block it, but clothing and even army are not enough. It must be something or some animal outside the person it hits."

"I felt calm when he hit me, but I didn't feel compelled to do what he said."

Flitwick's gave him an appraising look, "A strong will, Mr. Romanoff, a strong will indeed if you felt no compulsion. Most people are so overcome with the feeling of calmness that any order is felt as their own will. Some people can be kept under the curse for days, weeks, long after the curse had been cast. They carry on orders, acting as spies, acting against their own best interests, even being used to kill others."

Harry felt sick, and thought back to the story Mom had told about some of the magicks from her universe. As fun as magic could be, it had its dark side.

"Why don't you return to the Ravenclaw common room, be late for dinner. I'm going to talk to the Headmaster, and you shall receive no punishment for what Mad-Eye has done. Avoid him if at all possible."

"What about the next class?"

Flitwick sighed, "Knowing Dumbledore, you will be expected to return. It is rather hard to find DADA professors."

Harry frowned, "I won't allow myself to be attacked."

"Nor should you," the professor agreed, "again, I will ensure that no punishment befalls you and I will do my best to make sure this does not happen to you or any other. If he crosses the line again I will make sure he never teaches another day again."

Harry saw in his eyes that if it had just been up to him that Moody would be gone today. So, Harry nodded and went back to the commons.

Padma and Hermione were there. Hermione's face was flushed, "He was out of line."

Padma nodded, "He deserved to be knocked on his ass."

A curly blonde haired girl wandered over, almost floated, "Who deserved it?"

Hermione frowned at the girl, but Harry answered, "Professor Moody, he tried using the Imperius Curse on me."

The girl blinked owlish eyes at him, then whispered conspiratorially, "I think something is very wrong with him, even the nargles stay away from him."

Padma and Hermione rolled their eyes, but Harry, who had no idea what a nargle was, asked, "Do the nargles avoid anyone else?"

The girl sighed, "Only Professor Flitwick and Fleur Delacour, but that's because nargles prefer to torment pure humans."

"But they fear Moody?"

She nodded stoically.

Hermione made a harsh sound, "Harry, nargles aren't real."

He turned to look at her, "Why not?"

"Because every book says they aren't real."

Harry grinned, "Books were written by people and people have been unitedly wrong on plenty of topics before."

The blonde hugged him, and he hugged her back, he'd been in places whose cultures that were a lot more touchy-feely than Britain or America, she looked up at him grinning, "I'm Luna Lovegood."

He grinned back, "I'm Harry Romanoff."

She released him spinning in a circle so her skirts spun out under her robes and galloped up the stairs to the dorm rooms.

Padma said, "She's a little crazy."

Harry smiled, "I like her."

* * *

Filius caught Minerva as she was stacking her graded papers, "We need to talk."

She looked up, surprised, "Yes?"

"Mad-Eye attacked our new student with the Imperius Curse."  
"He did what!?"

He repeated himself.

Minerva put her hand to her forehead, "We have to talk Albus. What did he make Mr. Romanoff do?"

"Mr. Romanoff said he knocked the professor off his foot after shrugging of the curse."

Her eyes widened, "Surely he isn't that…"

"Powerful?" Filius finished for her, "Minerva, that boy is going to be the greatest wizard of his age, I haven't seen such raw power since-"

"Riddle."

Filius sighed, "I don't believe he is headed in  _that_  direction, but he is dangerous. If he doesn't learn control…"

"He needs formal training," Minerva said, "but does he need more training than just our classes? He didn't do well in my class, nor Severus's for that matter."

"Lily and James could help him," Filius said, "I'm sure they would be more than happy to visit on the weekends, and it hardly something the other parents could object to given the circumstances."

"I would almost say they should homeschool him," she said, "But the last thirteen years have been…"

"I think Harry needs his peers."

"He needs his parents."

Filius shook his head, "I met Natasha Romanoff. She loves him, and he loves her as much as any son has ever loved their mother. He does  _not_  need his parents. But Ms. Romanoff doesn't appear to have any more training than Harry does in magic."

Her eyes went wide, "When did you meet her?"

"When I took Harry to go get his wand, she is staying at the Three Broomsticks, she had a wand, she knew about magic, but-"

"But what?"

"She didn't know what apparating was, she didn't even know she was a witch until she 'found' Harry. But the thing is, she is no weaker than Harry. Something very odd happened that night."

"You mean besides all three of the Potters apparently surviving You Know Who's Killing Curses?"

Filius was quiet for a long moment, "Yes, besides that."

"Did you see Albus's expression?"

Filius nodded.

"He knew."

Filius nodded again.

"Perhaps James and Lily confided in him."

He shook his head, "If Lily and James trusted Albus, Peter Pettigrew wouldn't have been their secret keeper."

Minerva sighed, "Albus is a good man, despite his shortcomings."

He glared, "Yes, well let's go discuss his latest shortcoming, I swear if I have to deal with one more inept DADA professor I'm going to teach all those spells in duelling class. Who knows, maybe only the title DADA is cursed in this school."

oOo

When they got to the Headmaster's office he was standing and frowning out the window, without turning around, he said, "I heard Mr. Potter had some trouble today."

Minerva and Filius exchanged a look.

"Alastor wants the boy expelled."

Minerva's lips thinned, "Albus, it's the professor who should be terminated. The Imperius Curse! On a student in front of a room full of students!"

Albus sighed, turning to them, "It was a learning-"

Filius snorted, "Either you can fight off the Imperius or you can't, and sometimes it depends on the caster's strength. You can't prepare anyone for that. The best you can tell anyone is that it is  _possible_  and to fight it."

"I'll admit that Alastor may have taken it too-"

"You told him he wasn't allowed to continue didn't you?" Minerva interjected.

"Of course," Albus said amicably.

Neither Head of House bought it.

"Albus," Minerva growled.

"I have no one else to teach the class, it is an important class."

"Well then perhaps it is time we call in the curse breakers, it's been over a decade, we know it's real."

"That would be dangerous," the old man told them.

"Dangerous!" Minerva exclaimed, "More dangerous than Nigel slipping off the moving staircase when we have spells to prevent that? Albus, how many of our past DADA professors have gotten hurt over the years? Or, considering the children, how many charlatans have we had, Remus was wonderful last year but the year before? Lockhart was a disgrace to all of us."

"Minerva-"

"Don't you Minerva me, Albus. Filius is correct, we know this is a curse, a curse laid by Riddle when he came to apply for the position. I will personally call the curse breakers."

"Alastor will teach through the year, that will not change."

Minerva smiled, "If I hear so much as a rumour that he has put any of the students in undue danger, I will see him in prison."

"It was a learning-"

"It was an Unforgivable!"

"Albus," Filius added in a calmer voice, "Harry Romanoff will leave this school if we give him enough cause. He knows he only needs to be here for the tournament."

"Harry will stay."

Filius frowned, "No, he won't."

Albus sat in his seat and smiled at them both, eyes twinkling, "Harry Potter was meant to be here."

Minerva and Filius exchanged another look, maybe Moody wasn't the only mad one at Hogwarts.

* * *

The Three Broomsticks.

Somehow whenever James fantasized about finding his son and his kidnappers, the Three Merlin-Damned Broomsticks wasn't it.

Natasha Romanoff was a guest, a guest that somehow had all of magical London talking.

The Witty Russian, the Beautiful Russian, the Sexiest Witch to ever grace the United Kingdoms. They were a pretty small community, but still, James thought it was a pretty far jump to call any one witch the  _most_  beautiful or sexy.

And James Potter thought that right up until Lily banged on her door.

And the sexiest witch he had ever seen opened the door wide, cocking her hip, and greeting them with a smile that rendered even Lily speechless.

Even if it was for all of five seconds, "You're the bitch that stole my son."

James almost smiled, he liked Lily's fury, he didn't care how physically attractive this other woman was, Lily would always be the only for him.

And he realized with a jolt, that it had been a long time since he thought of his wife as, well, a woman.

They shared a bed, but it wasn't until this week that real  _life_  had been brought back into their lives.

His goal was very simple today, to keep Lily from killing Natasha Romanoff. James was so happy to  _know_  his son was alive, that the rest, no matter how much the rest hurt, the rest didn't matter as long as he didn't disappear again.

"I suppose I am," the woman said in a purring Russian accent.

James felt as if he had just waltzed into a movie as she beckoned them inside. And foolishly, at least given how his wife was vibrating with rage, turning her back on them to retreat to the little kitchenette in the corner of the room. This was certainly one of the better suits in the inn.

He put a hand on Lily's shoulder, and shut the door behind them.

"So you aren't going to deny you kidnapped our son."

Natasha came back into the room with three martini glasses, it looked milk based but was definitely alcoholic, thank Merlin.

"Sit, drink," she instructed, following her own advice, and crossing her legs so that muggle skirt revealed her long toned legs.

James directed Lily to the love seat across from the woman who had raised their child. He took a glass off the table and held it out to Lily, she scowled at him, so he drank from it.

"James!" she exclaimed, "It could be poisoned."

Natasha laughed, a full throated contralto. "If I were going to kill you, Mrs. Potter, you would already be dead."

James had been threatened by a lot of people in his day, Lily included, but for the life of him, he couldn't tell if Natasha was serious or pulling their leg.

"Answer my damned question," Lily snarled at her.

Natasha sipped her drink, laying on arm back against the line of the chair, in the process pressing out the curve of her breasts.

James would have been uncomfortable, but her eyes had never strayed to him. It was almost like he wasn't in the room, the Russian had eyes only for his wife.

"Which question would that be?" she asked casually.

James took another sip, he was surprised Lily hadn't lunged at her yet.

"You stole our son."

Natasha sat forward, uncrossing her legs, and resting her glass down on the table, "The last time I saw you, my darling Mrs. Potter, you didn't have a pulse."

James could almost feel Lily grinding her teeth, "Harry has a godfather."

"Death told me something different," Natasha said gently.

James frowned, Harry had mentioned that.

Death.

Not the thing, but the being, as if Death was a person to be spoken to.

Not that they had a better explanation of why they were alive other than a death god brought them back to life. But James would hold to his doubts.

"And what did Death say?" Lily asked, a tad less hostilely.

Natasha pulled back, her arms curling around herself. James was pretty sure it was an act, but even pissed, Lily leaned toward the other woman, and he watched in awe when her features softened.

James sipped his drink again, Natasha Romanoff was good, and his wife, under all the pain and hurt, still had the kindest heart he had ever known.

"Death said that Harry needed me, that if I left him that he would be given to people who would lock him up, near starve him, work him like a servant, and that he would be murdered before he graduated from school."

James hearted gave a sharp tug, she had said it with such candour, he had a hard time believing  _that_  was an act.

Lily stood, "We would never do that to our son!"

But James had a sudden thought, "Lily sit," he tugged on her hand, "what would have happened if we had stayed dead?"

"Sirius would have raised him," Lily snapped.

"Sirius would have gone after Peter," James argued, "He wanted to that night, even when we were searching for Harry, he was so grief and rage filled… what if something had happened to Sirius."

She sat, but she glared at Natasha, "Why didn't you investigate whether or not Harry had family looking for him?"

Natasha shrugged, making the gesture somehow graceful, "When the assassins started showing up in numbers I put as much distance between Britain and Harry as I could manage. We kept moving and I never stayed in the magical worlds long. I took every precaution with Harry's safety. But I swear to you both, that I would not have separated Harry from his birth parents had I known you were alive."

James didn't know why he believed this stranger, but he did.

Lily did not, "We aren't just his birth parents, we are his  _parents._ "

Natasha leaned across the table and took Lily's hand.

Lily started at the touch and did not speak when Natasha said, "He's  _our_  son. And he is beautiful. I can never say how sorry I am for you both, no more than I can ever thank you enough for bringing him into this world. He's… he's everything. He's perfect."

James had never known jealousy as he knew it in that moment.

Lily put her other hand on Natasha's, her knuckles going white. "You bitch. You fucking bitch."

Tears spilled down Lily's cheeks and Natasha put one gentle hand to her cheek, "I died too, that night. When I was brought back I woke on the floor next to you, Lily," the way Natasha said his wife's name was like a caress, "Harry was alone, and I -my life matters very little, but I thought if I could keep this one boy alive, be there to ensure he has a good life, to know he is loved and not be forced into some Dark Lord's schemes, that I could make a difference."

"He is  _my_  son," Lily said, her heart in her voice, "he's James's son, and he never knew us."

Natasha stood in a fluid motion, keeping Lily's hand in hers, "Come I have something to show you."

Lily followed the other woman numbly, James followed silently wondering if this Russian was hitting on his wife.

Other men and wizards had hit on Lily in front of him before, and typically Lily herself scared them off. But with Natasha…

James thoughts were immediately derailed when he saw what lay on the counter.

Pictures.

Pictures of Harry, pictures of Harry with Natasha, his mother. Because even James couldn't deny the love he saw in those family photos. Photos that looked like they truly had been all over the world.

Lily clung to Natasha's hand, and reached out her other hand for him. He took her elbow, and she gave him nearly all of her weight, her emerald eyes scanned the photos hungrily.

James's eyes swept over them as well, and it hurt, he felt like crying. While they had been in hell, their son had been happy.

And this, this was the best case scenario, that their son hadn't lived a life grieving the parents who were searching for him. That he had been protected from all threats, that no Death Eater or Dark Lord had ever gotten their hands on him. Their son had grown up strong and had been loved. Had done sports… he reached out to his son holding up to other children's arms, all three were dirt covered and smiling, he was maybe nine years old, wearing a medal somehow bigger than his smile.

"Wrestling in Haryana, India, those kids were tough," Natasha supplied, "But we stayed long enough that he was able to get a medal in his age group. He was so pleased with himself. And he got dirt everywhere, but he likes being outdoors more than in the fancy indoor rinks with synthetic mats."

He touched another photograph of Harry sitting in an airport, he was younger, maybe eight or seven, messy haired head bent over a book fully that eclipsed his lap.

"We were on a trip to Manitoba, Canada, to a fossil dig site, he was very into dinosaurs and geology. He still loves geology and geography. Show him old maps and lights up like it's Christmas."

James touched photograph after photograph, and Natasha told them story after with as much pride and love as every mother should feel for their child.

Lily had let go of Natasha's hand to reach a shaking hand out to one of Harry in tears, red faced and snot nosed.

He looked like he was on a boat, blue, blue water behind him, he was six or seven years old James guessed.

"California," Natasha said with a laugh, "he loves seals, but his favourite animals were orcas. He learned on that whale watching adventure why they are called killer whales, it ate a seal looking for protection near our boat."

Lily spoke, her voice tight, "Are they still his favourite animal?"

"No, but he claims if he ever comes back in another life that he wants to be an orca. He likes the water and orca's according to him, are the Kings of the ocean. He proved this to me last year when he showed me a documentary about an orca hunting a great white." Natasha her head. "Honestly, I know I fed his questions and curiosity, but Harry has such a wide span of interests, I don't think he'll ever lose his passion for the world."

James scanned over the pictures, and they reflected what she said, a boy who loved where he was and in train stations or bus terminals or airports always had his face in a book. There were very few pictures of him with other kids outside of sports events, but he looked happy.

James's heart skipped a beat when he spotted one particular photograph of Harry, smiling joyously at the camera, his nose pink, his glasses partially fogged, and his messy curls framing his face from under a fur-lined hat. He couldn't have been older than five years old.

Natasha noticed his attention and as he picked up the snapshot, he stared at the hoard of tourists behind his son, in what James's recognized as Palace Square in St. Petersburg on Christmas Eve.

"I started taking Harry to Russia every Christmas," Natasha said, her voice softening with the warm glow of a thousand happy memories. "You can join this year, if Harry wants you to come."

_If Harry wants you._  James couldn't breathe.

Lily slapped her.

Natasha took it and went on as if nothing had happened, "Russia never had any good memories for me until Harry."

Lily raised her hand again, but Natasha caught her wrist and stepped into her, she said in a velvety voice, "I let you hit me the first time, but do it again," and her voice dropped a bit lower, "and I will hit you back."

Lily tore away from the other woman and disapparated without another word.

"We'll be in touch," James said thickly, before disapparating as well.

When he popped into their apartment, Lily had sunk to the floor, leaning against the sofa. James sat on the sofa, and Lily wrapped her arms around his legs, resting her head on his knee.

James felt hollow, the picture still in his hand. "He looks happy," he said, his voice sounding as if he were speaking down a tunnel.

He couldn't stop staring at the photograph, at their son, and two familiar disguised figures not ten yards behind him.

Eventually, he lowered his hand, unable to accept what his eyes told him, what he already knew to be true.

James had convinced himself it was Lily who was the obsessed one, but she hadn't been alone, he had obsessed right along with her until he had finally lost hope.

Lily placed a shaking hand on his, turning his wrist so she could see the photograph again, see the still image of their own blindness.

"In the end," she said brokenly, "we had no idea what we were looking for."

For the first time in thirteen years, Lily let herself cry, truly cry.

James dropped to his knees beside her. She curled into him, sobbing and clutching the front of his robes.

He rubbed her back, but he never let go of the photograph. The photograph of a father, mother, and son; lost in the crowd.

* * *

Natasha leaned against the counter.

They hadn't asked for custody of Harry.

They hadn't asked for custody.

Her fingertips felt tingly, only now did she realize how afraid she had been, feared what a fight between them would do to Harry.

She truly wanted him to know his birth parents, they seemed like decent people. But she couldn't lose him. She couldn't be given a smaller part of his life.

It would destroy her.

Her plan to flirt with Lily Potter had worked well enough, it had been a careful dance between playful enough to not have them calling harassment on her and heavy enough to confuse them, put them off their guard.

Considering all she had received was a slap, Natasha considered it a win. Had she been in Lily's position, the other woman would have had a knife in her heart and be food for the fishes.

* * *

AN: Thoughts, reactions, ideas, or orcas?


	7. Mischief Managed

 

James and Lily went into work with Sirius the next morning.

"What was she like?" Sirius asked.

"She was a bitch," Lily sniped.

James coughed, "She was, interesting. She didn't give an inch though, she's like Harry."

"Did you ask how she got Harry before I got there?"

Lily sighed, "She said she saw me dead, and she…"

"She said Death told her that if she didn't take Harry he would have a miserable life and be murdered before graduating," James supplied.

"He wouldn't have been miserable with me," Sirius protested.

Lily frowned, "He would have been with my sister."

James made a harsh noise, "He wouldn't have ended up with the Dursleys, we have a million other people who would have taken him in. The Longbottoms for starters."

Lily scowled down at her feet as they walked into the elevator.

"What?" James asked, "You aren't really going to defend your horrid sister and her beastly husband, are you? You saw their son, that boy is the size of a small whale, at least with Natasha our son is healthy."

She looked at him, emerald eyes blazing at the mere mention of the other woman, but what she said was, "Why did Hagrid show up at Godric Hollow that night?"

James blinked at her, and the elevator binged open to their floor.

They stepped out and before James could dredge up an answer, their office burst into applause. People came up to them smile, congratulations on their lips. Alice and Frank hugged all three of them.

Harry Potter was found, Harry Potter was  _alive_.

Kingsley grinned at James, "Going to get serious about your work now, Potter?"

It was a joke, because aside from the hand full of Sirius's bad days, they were known as the three most serious Aurors ever employed. Even Mad-Eye Moody couldn't hold a candle to them. It was one reason why Nymphadora Tonks was training under Sirius and not the ex-Auror.

Amelia Bones shouted at them all, "Get back to work, if you don't have something to do, I will  _give_  you something to do."

Lily gave their boss a grateful look as the room dispersed into 'busyness.' She led them to her office, Nymphadora, or Tonks, looked up like a happy puppy when they all approached. Once they were all inside Lily's office James reached to take down their son's wall.

"James, wait."

He sighed, "It's done, Lils, we know where he is. It's over."

"Why was Hagrid there that night?" Lily repeated.

He sighed again, "I don't know, Lils, Albus sent him once he knew the wards were down."

"But why would Dumbledore send him? I'm not questioning that Hagrid's a good man, but why him? Why not the Aurors? For that matter, why didn't Aurors appear before Sirius got there? Why was it just Hagrid?"

"Hagrid is a half giant," Sirius offered, "He has resilience to spells."

"But not against the killing curse," Lily said.

James mind was spinning, and suddenly, issues that he had pushed out of his mind for years were pushing back at him, but he didn't want to acknowledge them. Wasn't it enough that Harry was back and in one piece?

"What are you getting at?" he asked.

Lily sat back against her desk and waved her wand at the board, that flipped back to the one she had been using in the early days of their search. "How did Albus know the Dark Lord had been defeated? How did he know Harry was alive enough to send Hagrid? Where was Hagrid going to take Harry? Why didn't Albus show up himself?"

James stared at the pictures of their ruined home, looked past the pain of years and war and loss and simply looked at the facts.

"Albus thought Sirius was the Secret Keeper," he said softly.

Sirius took the paper from Tonks who was standing big eyed in the corner, and it was he asked the most revealing question, "Why is Harry the Boy Who Lived? We didn't tell anyone he survived the Killing Curse, no one knows you two survived it either."

"You what!?" Tonks exclaimed looking at the Potters with new awe.

James frowned, "We didn't tell anyone, you were the only one who knew and…"

"They were calling Harry the Boy Who Lived that first night," Lily said. "No one should have known, no one should have known Voldemort was dead either. And yet-"

"And yet," James finished darkly, "Albus sent Hagrid to rehome Harry, somehow knowing that we would be dead, Harry would have survived, and that Voldemort would be dead as well."

Tonks was looking at the board too, and she added, "We know Harry had the scar from Bellatrix's account."

Lily growled, actually growled. Neither Bellatrix Black -once Lestrange, nor Barty Crouch Jr.'s accounts had been much good. They had shared only that Harry was alive, had a scar on his forehead and that he was being raised by 'one of them.' They hadn't even gotten a description, which in hindsight would have helped a lot considering that not many people looked like Natasha Romanoff.

Hell, had James had half his wits around him, he would have noticed her if…

"So how did Albus Dumbledore know?" Lily interrupted his train of thought, "How did he know our wards had fallen, that we had all been struck with the killing curse, and that Harry was alive?"

"And how did he not know that you and James were alive?" Sirius added.

"We missed something," James muttered, "How did we not stop to ask this before?"

"Because," Lily mocked, "it's  _easy_  to trust the Great Albus Dumbledore."

"Lily," James warned. It wasn't that he now disagreed that Albus really was as untrustworthy as Lily always believed.  _But._

But Lily  _hated_  him. Hated him with a depth and a fury that James simply couldn't understand. He knew it had something to do with her renewed friendship with Snape, but he didn't understand it.

"Lily-Flower," Sirius said, "Why didn't you want Albus to be the Secret Keeper? Why did you always insist it had to be one of us?"

"Because," she snapped, snatching the newspaper from him, "I could always see it in his eyes, whenever someone died in the Order. The means always justified the ends for him. A man like that," she pinned the newspaper on the board, THE BOY WHO LIVED RAISED BY A DEATH EATER? "can't be trusted."

"Lily," James repeated in that same warning tone, "you know you can be the same way."

She shook her head, "If that bastard used our family for bait, you're right in that. I will do everything I have to take that man down. Even if I have to go to Lucius Malfoy to do it."

Tonks sucked in a breath, "My mother isn't going to like that."

Everyone ignored her, and Sirius said, "We can just go ask the old goat."

"And get what? A thousand misdirections?" Lily asked, already in work mode, her mind spinning.

"He's the one who is always saying Voldemort is still alive somewhere, somehow," James said almost desperately, "He wouldn't use us for bait."

She turned on him, hands on hips, "Are you going to help me or not?"

And for the first time ever, James saw only fury and determination, not anguish and desperation in her emerald eyes at the start of a new case. He sighed, "If we are going to the Malfoys, Sirius and Tonks are coming with us."

Tonks looked a little afraid, and James didn't know if she was afraid of her aunt Narcissa or her mother Andromeda.

Sirius on the other had a look of pure evil cross his face, he rubbed his hands together and said, "Hehe, family reunion time."

Yep, James was decided, this was a terrible idea. But then, trading information with Death Eaters might not be as bad as finding out that the head of the Order of the Pheonix was as diabolical as his wife seemed to believe he was.

James thought he had about as much truth as he could handle for a while.

* * *

Harry was actually excited about the next day of school. For one, out of all the staff, he felt he knew Professor Flitwick best, and he was one of the only people to get his name right a hundred percent of the time.

"You look happy today," Fleur said.

Harry grinned, "Today, I have Charms."

Padma grinned at him, then said in a sugary-sweet voice, "Oh, and you think you're good at that, do you, Romanoff?"

"I don't think," Harry said, "I know."

Hermione made a face, "You were good with shield Charms but that isn't the same as being in a formal class."

"Want to take bets?" Harry asked.

Hermione shook her head, but on their way to class, the Slytherins were calling out bets that Harry would get blasted somehow.

Draco Malfoy didn't say anything, but his goons shouted out numbers that Harry thought were higher than they probably knew how to count.

Everyone settled into Flickwick's class, "Today," he began, "We will be learning Growing Charms. Now, this charm works only on mundane plants, so that's why Professor Sprout doesn't teach you this one. Before you, is a cup of dirt and in it, a seed. The seed belongs to a common rose plant. Add too much force into the spell and nothing will happen as the seed is tiny and will be turned to dust, not enough power, and the seedling will be small, and miscast, thorns will grow and nothing else. The Latin is Crescerio." And he waved his wand upward, and out his cup grew a beautiful plant, that budded, then bloomed into a beautiful white rose.

Everyone looked at their cup, and when the professor said to begin, several cups went up in smoke.

Hermione's plant was the first to look like a plant, and Padma's was the first to get blossoms.

"What's the matter, Romanoff?" Malfoy asked, "Can't manage without a wand?"

Harry had yet to use his bo staff, and he wouldn't need to for this. His magic had just settled into the seed. Palm facing downward, he gently brought his hand up as if he were tracing up a piece of cloth, the magic and the plant followed the motion, and when he brought his hand up, the red rose bloomed like a flower straight out of the movies. He saw Padma's expression and decided that, yes, Professor Flitwick was his favourite professor.

"Well done," the man himself enthused, he placed another cup down his desk, "Now let's see if you can do it with your staff."

"Staff?" Malfoy asked affronted.

Harry pulled off the wooden bracelet that with a thought and the faintest pulse of magic turned into a staff. He was careful not to hit either Hermione or Padma.

All the students stopped what they were doing to watch.

"You can't use a staff like a wand," someone Harry didn't know said from behind him.

"My dad can use his cane when he wants to," Malfoy said, "it acts like an extension of his wand, but it isn't good for most spells he said."

"Just do what feels natural, Mr. Romanoff," Flitwick instructed.

Harry, not knowing what to do, brought it up of the floor, gathering his energy in it, and like Gandalf the Grey had in the books, brought it down on the floor saying, "Crescerio."

And every cup that had not grown yet grew, every plant that had not bloomed yet bloomed, and every plant that had already bloomed turned into a bush with multiple flowers.

The entire class was rendered silent.

Harry Romanoff, the boy who couldn't perform a single spell without getting blasted off his feet, was good at charms.

Harry smiled, this was his favourite class.

* * *

"How was he?" Minerva asked, she sounded concerned, as he came into the Friday teacher's meeting.

Filius grinned, "Quite marvellous, that boy has power."

Severus huffed, "Did he show off like his father?"

Filius smiled fondly, "A bit, that staff of his is quite powerful. I think it would be best if we stick to teaching him spells wandlessly. He has the control to focus and direct his magic, the staff only magnifies that."

Minerva looked annoyed, "I don't know how to teach him the spells wandlessly."

"Did he understand the theory?" Filius asked.

She thought about it, "No, not that I could tell."

"He didn't understand a thing about Potions," Severus said.

"He's a hard worker," Pomona threw in.

"Then it looks like we have much to teach him," Filius said, "but I do believe tutoring will be needed in order for him to succeed. He certainly doesn't lack intelligence or strength."

Professors Vector, Bethshada, and Sinetra nodded at this, but Sinetra said, "From what you have all said, I believe it is only Potions, Herbology, and Transfiguration."

Hagrid nodded, "He kept up just fine in my class."

"Lily and James would be happy to help," Albus said, walking in, "Excuse me for my tardiness."

Filius argued, "I think it would be good for them, but we should also give Mr. Romanoff other options. At the very least wait until next weekend."

"The boy needs help now," Severus said.

"Let him set the pace," Filius advised, "he knows his limits."

"James and Lily-" Albus began.

"Are no longer our students," Filius cut him off, "Mr. Romanoff is."

Albus smiled genially but Filius could see that he wasn't happy.

That was fine, there was a reason Filius never joined his order, the reason why a number the staff hadn't even as they fought in the war.

* * *

Harry was going to pester the twins for the secrets, but when they didn't notice him following them, he took on a new tack.

Spying.

Harry was very good at spying, assassinating, no, but spying, he had been doing that since he knew how to walk. Mom called it training, Harry considered it more like unbridled curiosity.

The twins, as it turned out, did there own fair share of sneaking. They seemed to be pulling a prank on their older and younger brothers from what he could understand from their whispered snickering.

It was a pretty straight forward prank, jump out here, they step back here, but what caught his interest was the piece of parchment Fred pulled from his pocket. The same parchment he had spotted before.

George pointed his wand at it and said, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."

Harry ducked behind a suit of armour, careful not to brush against the metal.

"They're coming this way," Fred whispered, "Mischief managed."

Harry waited, three minutes later, three boys came down the hall, one a redhead that had to be a relative to the twins, all three boys screamed when something splashed on them.

"Peeves!" the boy shouted and the second boy bemoaned, "These were my good robes!"

They ran off, chasing a poltergeist that had never been there. Harry listened to the twins snicker, his mind turning over like the tumblers of a lock.

Somehow, that parchment had told them who was coming down that hall.

Harry needed that oversized, old piece of parchment. He had only till tomorrow night till his mom scaled the walls.

The castle was huge, he hadn't seen half of it yet. Though he had found a spot they could meet in relative privacy, he needed to know more.

* * *

Natasha was pretty sure wizards were cracked in the head. Filius Flitwick hadn't told her how to apparate or where the Aurors office was, but it didn't take long for her batting her eyes at a poor wizard at the bar for the information to be revealed.

The wizard who helped her had leered and told her that a little girl shouldn't try it on her own or might get spliced.

Splicing turned out to be a real thing and the reason why no one would teach her. So, she asked for another way to get to London. A handful of green powder and a step into the flames later, and she was back in London, in a hall massive enough to make even Tony envious.

She imagined this must be what Asgard had looked like, only darker, underground, and well, British. The British sometimes made the Russians seem cheery.

Manoeuvring her way through the crowd, she came to a desk, the man hardly looked at her, and asked blandly, "Wand."

Natasha put her wand on the scale, and the moment she did, she regretted it.

She knew it before the little slip of paper came out and the man rolled his eyes up at her, slowly and fearfully.

"I'll wait," she said drily.

The man gulped and sent- a paper aeroplane out behind him.

They waited together in awkward silence, as he sweated and she chastised herself for the mistake.

"I don't suppose," she said, "I can get that wand back."

He squeaked, and held the wand to his chest, shaking his head.

She frowned, he shouldn't be this afraid of her, she hadn't given him a reason, not yet.

Another minute later a man popped into existence, and asked, "What is it, Munch? Is the paper jammed again?"

'Munch' pointed a shaky finger at her.

The man turned to her, his eyebrows going up at her appearance, he held out his hand, "Well, hello, I'm Auror Frank Longbottom, what brings you to the ministry today?"

Natasha shook his hand, "Natasha Romanoff, and I was looking for the Aurors office."

The man's smile froze on his face when he heard her name. He took his hand back and looked as if he would have wiped it on his robes and taken back the smile.

Munch handed Frank the strip of paper, Frank's eyes snapped up at her, "You have Bellatrix Black's wand?"

He said it in low voice and still, the people around them went quiet. They all looked at her as if she were…

Well, like she was who she really was, it was unnerving.

She had enjoyed the last few years not being the assassin Romanoff, but just Natasha, Harry's mother, Romanoff.

She nodded, hoping like hell she hadn't killed that woman. She killed two of them, but the woman and the boy she had let go, with some minor injuries. But it would be just her luck that the woman had died on her way to the hospital.

"And why did you say you were here?" Frank asked.

"Aurors office."

"Perfect," he said. "Follow me."

Natasha twisted her wrist in the way Harry had taught her and her wand returned to her hand.

Frank, like the police officer that he was, saw it, his shoulder stiffening, but he didn't protest.

He led her into an elevator and asked, "You stole Bellatrix Black's wand?"

"She tried to kill my son," she replied coolly.

"Your son," he repeated under his breath.

When they arrived at the correct floor she was directed to an interrogation room.

Good to know that the wizarding world wasn't that different.

"I'll be back in a minute," Frank lied.

They would make her wait because wizard or 'muggle' they were all human.

Forty-three minutes later, a tall black man came into the room to intimate her, followed by a stone-faced woman, and then a sweet faced woman.

Hours passed.

The only things they got of her that was that yes, indeed, she had stolen Bellatrix Black's wand during an attack, and yes, she was absolutely, Harry Romanoff's mother, and that she 'escaped' with Harry in the attack.

* * *

Alice came out of the interrogation room, her sweet smile falling instantly. "She doesn't give an inch."

"We have to let her go," James said.

"James!" Lily exclaimed.

Bones shook her head, "We can get her on the murder of the Lestrangers."

James glared at his boss, "No we can't, it was self defense."

"Why are you defending her?" Lily asked, getting in his face.

James loved his wife, he really did, but to say the last decade or so had taken a toll on their relationship would be like say Bellatrix Black was only slightly crazy.

So James did what any man in his position would do, he taunted, "Why weren't you the first person in that interrogation room?"

"You wouldn't let me," she hissed back.

He shook his head and said tiredly, "Lily, I've never been able to stop you from anything you've wanted to do."

Sirius asked, "Are we missing something?"

James kept his eyes on his wife, and watched her face flush. He hadn't been all that impressed with Natasha's seduction skills, but then, it hadn't been meant for him.

"What's the matter, Lils," he continued in a low voice, "Scared?"

Her eyes seemed to glow for a moment and she stormed into the interrogation room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Bones, Frank, Alice, Kingsley, and Sirius all looked at him. Sirius asked, "What the hell was that?"

James turned to the window to watch, wondering just how far Natasha Romanoff was willing to get the upper hand.

Kingsley said, "We can't let her kill our suspect."

Bones shrugged, "The paperwork wouldn't be that bad."

James sighed, it really didn't help things that the entire wizarding world hated Natasha Romanoff on principle, because he knew, just as well as Lily knew, that the only way to Harry was through her.

And unfortunately, going over her dead body would either have Harry running away or out for their blood.

* * *

Lily felt rage, life sustaining, energy providing rage.

Its what kept her going, what got her out of bed in the morning. The idea that some monster had stolen her baby…

She turned to face that monster, and the monster smiled at her warmly, "Hello, Lily."

Lily marched to stand in front of the table, and leaned over it, she spat out the monster's name, "Romanoff."

Natasha's eyes lingered over her face, as if she were looking over a beautiful painting, then her gaze fell lower.

When was the last time James had looked at her like that? Better question, when was the last time she had noticed?

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Lily growled, not meaning to swear.

Natasha stretched her body out like a cat, and Lily noticed the swell of the other woman's breasts, her flat stomach, and-

Lily glared, she wasn't attracted to the other woman, but it was weirdly distracting. She had seen women do this to her husband, but directed at her, it was just, well, odd. "What are you doing here?" Her voice had eased and she cursed herself when she saw the uptilt of Natasha's lips.

They were playing a game, and currently, Natasha held all the damned cards. And the bitch fucking knew it.

"Won't you have a seat?" Natasha asked, "I like my eye contact to be," she bit her lower lip, then released it, "less strained."

"Drop the shite," Lily snapped, "what are you doing here?"

Natasha batted her eyes, which was a stupid thing Lily hated when other girls did, but she noticed the colour of the other woman's eyes, and again, it was distracting, and confusing. How did you make someone stop flirting with you?

Simple, you got angry or distant. But Lily was angry and Natasha didn't seem to care, and Lily couldn't afford to be distant.

So she changed the interrogation, "How's Harry?"

Natasha's face lit up, and Lily wanted nothing more to carve out the woman's eyes with a dull, rusted spoon.

"He's having a difficult time adjusting, his first day didn't go well. Wands don't like him much, but his professor, Filius Flitwick, took us to London to see Mr. Olivander."

Finally, a breakthrough. Pleasantly, and through gritted teeth, Lily asked, "And what wand did he get?"

Natasha laughed, the sound was... why the hell wasn't this woman married? "No, the wands hated him. One wand burst into flame. I nearly decked the old man."

Lily hated her stupid accent, "And why would you want to hurt Mr. Olivander?"

"Because the wand he gave Harry striped his hand with lashes."

Anger coursed through her veins, but not for Natasha, "What did you do?"

"There was another wandmaker there, but he was from Nigeria, were apparently wandless magic is far more common. Harry found a bo staff that works nicely for him. He loves it, I doubt he'll ever let it off his person willingly."

Lily blinked, no lies, no apparent half truths, just a straight answer. "Did you steal Bellatrix Black's wand?"

"I won it from her, yes, after hitting her with a chair."

"Did you kill the Lestrange brothers?"

Natasha met her gaze for a long moment, then said clearly, "Yes, I did, they were trying to kill my son."

Lily's voice was tight when she asked, "And why did you come here today?"

"I want to learn how to apparate, I was never a part of the wizarding world, I know as much or less than what Harry knows now."

* * *

"Now she talks," Alice grumbled.

"Is she flirting with Lily-Flower?" Sirius asked.

"Yes, she most certainly is," James answered.

Sirius gave him a look, "Do you think it's working?"

Bones answered, "Considering the other red head isn't dead, I think it's safe to say its working."

"James," Sirius said, "are you okay with that?"

He glared at his best friend, his brother, "What do you want me to say?"

Sirius shrugged, "I don't know, if that was a man in their flirting with your wife would you be upset?"

James didn't answer and even Sirius, for once in his shaggy life, didn't push.

* * *

Harry 'stumbled' into the twins Saturday morning, and got the parchment through sleight of hand, which turned out to be, after saying the magic words, a complete map with little names of where people were.

Mom was going to love this.

They met where Harry told her to be through a coded message delivered by the snowy owl, Hedwig.

She was an amazing owl.

Mom beat him to the roof, a place on a tower where none of the other windows could see and that wasn't difficult for either of them to climb through.

When mom hugged him, she nearly took the air away from him.

"How was your week?" she asked, pulling back and looking him over for injuries.

"Great! Well, sort of, I mean yesterday was great, Charms class with Professor Flitwick. Astronomy, Runes, and Arithmancy aren't bad, but the rest? I don't know, and I don't like the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."

"Why?" she asked sharply.

He didn't want to tell her, but it would be worse when she found out, and she always found out, "He used a curse on me in class."

"He did what?" she asked darkly.

"It didn't hurt me, it didn't do anything really, but if my will had been weaker the spell would have allowed him to do anything to me, make me do anything."

"What is the spell called?"

"The Imperius curse, Imperio."

"What did you do to him?"

Harry grinned, "I sent him crashing on his butt."

She smiled back, "That's my boy."

"What about your week?" he asked in turn.

"I met you're birth parents."

Harry went very still, "How did that go?"

"Everyone's breathing," she joked.

" _Mom._ "

She waved his concern away, "They're fine, no custody battle."

"There wouldn't be a battle," Harry said firmly, "I would just leave with you."

She patted his leg, "Give them a chance. I went to the Aurors office today."

He raised his brows, "Did you see them there too?"

She laughed, "Don't look so nervous. Lily Potter taught me how to apparate. I think we are going to be good friends."

Harry narrowed his eyes at her, "If she was nice to you, it's because she wants to get closer to me."

She sighed, "Harry, she's your mother, of course, she wants to get closer to you. Both your parents do, and I can prove it because the let me off the hook for murder charges."

"You are my mothe- wait, did you just say you  _admitted_  to murder?"

Mom took his hand in hers, "The Potters aren't the only ones trying to play nice."

"You don't have to play nice with them," he argued.

"Harry, I know you don't think you need them, hell, there are times I don't think you need me anymore, but you are going to have to start letting other people in. Friends, family-"

He opened his mouth to protest.

She shushed him, "Yes, family, maybe your parents will never fill that role, maybe you never see them as your mom and dad, but Harry, they do love you."

"They don't know me," he shot back.

"They don't need to," Natasha said, "that's what makes them family. They want to know you, and you will be better for having known your birth family."

"How do you know that? Would you have wanted to know yours?"

"In a heartbeat."

He looked away, out at the dark ground spread out below them. "What if they are secretly awful people?" he asked.

"What if they're incredible human beings who you wished you had known sooner?" she countered.

"You're my mom-"

"Harry," Natasha stopped him, squeezing his hand, she said, "I will always be your mother, that is non-negotiable. But you can't keep everyone at arm's length and expect to live a full life."

"I like my life," he said.

"You will be attending Hogwarts for the next three years," she stated.

"What!?" he exclaimed, "No, no, you said one or two."

"I changed my mind, unless it proves to be so dangerous I can't protect you, you're staying."

"No."

"Yes," she said with a smile, "I'm your mother, I get to make choices like this. And I think you need to grow some roots. I also believe the Potters are good people."

"Oh, please," Harry said, "those two are hardly a couple and their friends suck."

"You think marital problems mean they're bad people? Bad parents? Son, I've been single for the majority of my life, and you're going to criticize a couple who were murdered, resurrected, and have believed for the last thirteen years that their son was kidnapped by terrorists for having some marital tensions."

He threw up his hands, "I don't know how to do this! I don't know how to let those people in and I don't know that I want to even if a could."

"Well, then, you have three years to figure it out."

"Mom."

She flicked her finger across his nose, "Did you find any secret ways in for me?"

He sighed, knowing he had lost the argument, though the chances that Hogwarts was too dangerous to remain in wasn't gone yet. Pulling out the map, he said, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."

"A map!" she exclaimed in delight.

"You have to use magic when you say the words, I guess, you should use your wand. In order to hide the map, you say, mischief managed."

Natasha smiled, and they both knew, that the mischief had only begun.

* * *

AN: Reactions, comments, thoughts, ideas, or mischief, please?


	8. The Romanoffs

KEYNOTE: Timeline is like one week so far from chapters 2 through 7.

AN: Fucking Comcast cut a bunch of internet wires to my building because we use AWB, twice this week. Garrrrr.

Chapter 8 - The Romanoffs

"So," James began, as he was getting ready for bed, "you only taught Natasha how to apparate in hopes that she would splinch herself, no?"

Lily glared at the bed, "She didn't even hesitate. I don't think she knows much about magic but she's… incredibly powerful. Fifteen minutes and poof. It took longer to fill out the damn paperwork."

"Isn't it strange how she never went to school?" he remarked, "Someone of her power…"

"It is stranger that she didn't know she was a witch until Harry."

"She has been very honest with you," he said softly.

She looked away, "I hate her."

"She's trying."

"So am I," Lily snapped, "And her-" she motioned with her hand as if there were a person beside her. "Her act is- I really hate her."

James hid a smirk, Natasha's 'act' was getting under Lily's skin. Not that it was particularly hard to upset Lily, but to do it in such a way that his wife didn't tear out your throat was, above all things, remarkable.

"At least she isn't trying to keep us away from Harry. Maybe next Hogsmeade visit she'll let us see him."

" _Let us_ ," Lily snarled.

He sighed, "Lils, I think Harry is more reluctant to see us than Natasha is reluctant to let us spend time with him."

"He is our son, she doesn't have the right to stop us."

"I thought we agreed that the laws aren't a factor in this. Harry is her son in all the ways it matters. If we have even a chance of reconnecting with him we have to go through her."

James watched her control her breath, and noticing his gaze she snapped, "Why are you okay with this?"

He sighed, "Because Lils, he's alive, that the person who took him loved him, kept him safe, made him happy… that's the best, the absolute best thing that could have possibly happened. After all the nightmares we put ourselves through, all the things that could have happened…"

It was his turn to take a steadying breath, the fear and the anguish were unthinkable. But after thirteen years of searching, of being an Auror, he had thought through it all. He knew what happened to kidnapped little boys and girls. Natasha Romanoff may have made major mistakes in taking Harry but she wasn't a kidnapper, she wasn't crazy, she didn't harm him. In extraordinary circumstances, she had adopted an orphan from a warzone in which Harry had become a target.

James looked up to meet his wife's gaze, "I'm grateful, Lily. Grateful that in all this mess it was us who were the collateral damage. Us who were hurt and hurting. Not him, not our son. I'm grateful."

_And I'm tired, so very, very tired._

Lily was looking off into the distance, her shoulders slumping. After a while, she said, "Let's take a bath."

He sighed once more, "Whatever you say, Lils."

She looked at him, looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time.

She crossed the room, and reached out for his hand, then retreated. "I mean, do you want to take a bath?" she asked, then tacked on awkwardly, "with me?"

James caught her hand, lacing his fingers with hers, "Yeah, I would."

It had been a long time since Lily had  _asked_  him what he wanted, or at least asked while making eye contact and without assuming his answer.

It was a small thing, a small gesture, but it gave him hope that perhaps they would pull through as more than collateral damage.

* * *

Natasha Romanoff felt guilt over many choices in her life, many actions she would undo if she could, take back years -decades if she could. But seldom, if ever, could she remember feeling such guilt without regret.

She had separated Harry from his parents, in the process, had probably destroyed his parents' lives. And yet, she could not regret Harry, of anything she had ever done, Harry was the one thing she had done right.

She wondered if Clint would agree.

Shaking herself from her musing, she peered down again at the map. It was a thing of beauty, this map. She ran a finger over Harry's name.

It read Harry Romanoff, not Potter.

Hogwarts wasn't all that tricky to get into, but manoeuvring through it was far more difficult. With a map like this, telling her where everyone was, it should have been a breeze, but the map didn't include the ghosts or the portraits. The ghosts could pop up anywhere, through walls and floors and ceilings, and the portraits lined almost every wall.

So, Natasha was left to roof hop, which she did only at night.

According to Harry, his Professor Moody, who Natasha would find a way to pay a painful visit, also had an eye that could see through all objects. The implications, especially as he was serving as teacher bothered her greatly.

But payback and spying aside, her main goal was the library, a room that had many windows that were never opened, yet a room that Harry had reported as having no portraits, and was seldom visited by ghosts, as according to one, it was depressing not to be able to turn the pages.

With her handy-dandy grappling hook, she made it to one of the library windows which, as Harry had said, were locked.

She could have picked it, even if the latch was slighted rusted and the old style metal work that was both basic and heavy. Instead, she focused on the latch pulled her wand and whispered, "Wingardium Leviosa."

The latch lifted and then casting a silencing charm on the window, she pushed it open.

She was in.

Eyes adjusting to the dim light she began to scan the book spines for titles.

She found some more basic books, thinking it would be best to study up on those before exploring the restricted section.

* * *

Harry did not have any more luck with Transfiguration the second week than the first. At least he didn't get thrown backwards. His bo staff did not help in this class. He simply didn't understand the magic.

Professor McGonagall gave him a matchstick as the rest of the class continued attempting to make pin cushions.

The matchstick remained a matchstick.

oOo

"It is alright, 'Arry," Fleur encouraged at lunch, "you'll figure it out."

Padma patted his shoulder, "We can go to the library tonight."

Harry perked up at this. And not only did they go to the library that day, but the day after, and the day after that.

oOo

Harry slammed the book for Transfiguration. Hermione gave him a, falsely -at least in Harry's estimation, sympathetic look.

She opened her mouth and it was Padma who cut him off, "Don't Hermione, just don't, if I have to sit through another one of your lectures and watch Harry get more confused, I'm going to start pulling your hair out."

Hermione frowned at her, "The phrase is pulling your own hair out not someone else's."

"Why would I do that?" Padma asked, flipping her sleek hair over her shoulder, "You're the one being annoying."

Hermione glared and Padma grinned at her. Harry, however, continued to glare at the book. He just didn't get it. This was a branch of magic that had simply never clicked for him, and as he couldn't even rely on a wand, the magic felt reluctant and heavy inside him.

He needed someone to explain to him, not on theology base, not in lecture, but in a feeling. And nobody, not even McGonagall got what he was asking.

Even Mom had never been able to explain it to him as she had always been decent at the spells they had for Transfiguration.

She had described it as  _wanting_  a thing to change into another thing, then followed the guidelines.

But Harry had only half the guidelines to work with as his staff acted as a magnifier, like hooking an acoustic guitar up to an amplifier. Were as wands acted like a nozzle on a hose, able to focus the energy down to a smaller point.

Generally speaking, he could make up hand motions that felt correct, that led the magic, but he didn't know where to lead it.

Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts made sense to him, it did something or created something out of energy. The more energy he put into it, the stronger or more dramatic the results, he could will shields into being, he could lift things, he could grow things that would have naturally grown on their own, but he couldn't transform one thing into another thing.

Charms defied the laws of physics, whereas Transfiguration seemed to break them. Harry just couldn't make sense of it.

The obvious answer was  _magic._  But that didn't tell him how to direct it.

oOo

"Mr. Potter," Snape repeated for the umpteenth time.

Harry ignored him as he cut up the things Hermione had directed him toward. Hermione elbowed him, and he looked up, then around to the seething professor, "Oh, I'm sorry, were you talking to me?"

"Fifteen points from Ravenclaw, answer to your name," he growled.

Harry sighed, "No, my name is Romanoff. Really, do you have to be so tiresome?"

Snape glared down his protuberant nose at him, "Another ten points, Mr. Potter."

oOo

"Can't you just let it go?" Hermione asked as they were leaving Potions.

"No," Harry said flatly.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because it would be like finding out that you were adopted and suddenly started calling you, Ms. Sandler instead of Ms. Granger. Meanwhile, your parents, the Grangers, were still alive, still loving and raising you but everyone, all strangers, now expected you to be called Ms. Sandler."

"The woman who raised you didn't tell you, you were adopted?" Padma asked on the other side of Hermione.

Harry made a harsh sound, "Of course she did, hell, I remember -sort of, my birth parents. But they were… the bottom line is that my mom raised me, she gave me her name and I'm keeping it. I don't care if I'm a Potter, my name is Harry Romanoff and the next person who makes me repeat that is going to get hexed."

oOo

The next person turned out to be Moody.

Hexing him was pretty difficult given his roaming eye was always on Harry, which creeped him out.

But a misfired hex during a paired duelling session with Padma did the trick. It bounced off the mirrors and as the eye was on him not the beam of light, it got Moody squarely in the backside.

"Potter!" the old man roared as the bell rang.

"Romanoff," Harry sang over his shoulder as he joined the class rushing for the door.

Padma was laughing, she grabbed his arm and muscled them through the crowd before Moody could stop him. "You're terrible," she said.

He grinned, "I know."

oOo

Harry felt like he was sprinting, he wasn't but even a few days off felt like it had hurt his endurance.

Or maybe he was just feeling inferior to his mother's genetically enhanced run as she loped effortlessly between trees and over downed ones.

Harry had snuck out of the castle before dawn, and now, as the sun rose, he was covered in a sheen of sweat.

"So, tell me about your friends," Mom asked, not a hitch in her voice.

His answer was a bit more heavy breathed, "I'm not really sure I would call them friends."

"Them?" she pushed.

Harry sighed, then sucked in a breath, "Padma Patil and Hermione Granger. My roommates all keep their distance after what I did to Corner. The rest of the house students keep to themselves. There is this other girl, Luna Lovegood, but I've spent so much time in the library that I haven't seen her around much. She doesn't sit near me at lunch."

"Go on."

He had to work at steadying his breath, damn, he would have to train more than one day a week. "And there is Fleur at lunch, she's nice and French."

"So, only girls."

"I think the boys are intimated, except for Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom. They are in other houses, Draco is the son of that blonde guy we met at the library. He is possibly more annoying. Neville is nice, apparently, he knows my parents."

"Jealous?"

"No."

She slowed and turned a smirk on him.

"I am not jealous."

"It's okay, Harry, if you were. They are your parents. I was thinking maybe this weekend we could visit them."

"Don't you want to know how my classes are going?" he asked, changing the subject.

She kept her silence.

"Transfiguration still doesn't make sense, Potions and DADA have awful teachers."

"Same as last week," she said, sounding unsurprised.

He huffed.

"Tell me more about your friends."

"They aren't my friends," he snapped.

She waited.

He sighed, "Hermione is a know it all but I would be sunk without her in Potions. Padma is…"

He realized he didn't really have anything bad to say about her, so he settled on, "Nosy. She asks a lot of personal questions."

"She wants to be your friend," Mom said with a knowing smile.

"Fine, how has your week been?"

"I've been studying. There is a lot to catch up. I think I made a mistake by not exploring more of the Wizarding World."

Harry shook his head as they rounding back to the castle, "I'm not sure whether I like it or not yet. Something is up with the adults here. They are very set in their ways."

"Perhaps its us and not them," Mom said, then picked up the pace.

oOo

"Come on, Harry," Hermione said, "You have to get some sleep, you spend more time here than I do."

"And that's saying a lot," Padma joked.

Harry stretched, "I have a lot to make up for."

Padma rolled her eyes, "Come on, we have Charms in the morning. You will need your rest to wow us again."

Harry packed his things away but pulled an apple out of his bag. As they walked through the aisle he began to toss and catch it.

Both girls were walking in front of him and just before he left the aisle of shelves, he tossed the apple high and slightly back.

He heard another hand catch it. His training was such that he no longer knew how he knew when other people were around. The best way he could describe it was that he could sense that the space was more full. Likely it was just his sense of smell and hearing that picked up on someone, his mother, on top of the shelves which is instincts informed him that they weren't alone.

But whatever it was, when Padma turned back to look at him she narrowed her eyes, "Where did the apple go?"

He pointed to his bag.

If one could actually hear silent laughter, he knew they would have heard his mom down the hall.

Natasha sort of redefined helicopter parenting, which got him wondering how many helicopter parents could really fly one, he knew his mom could. Although, flying spaceships was more impressive than helicopters.

oOo

The next day they were practising disarming charms, which Harry was particularly good at.

After class, Professor Flitwick called him over.

"Yes, sir?"

"Well done today, Mr. Romanoff."

"Thanks." Considering he knew over a hundred different ways to do it with hand to hand combat and another thousand ways to do it with weapons, it wasn't that hard of spell to grasp.

"Now, I was just informed that there is a parent-teacher conference tonight for you in the headmaster's office. Dumbledore informed me that he will not be informing Ms. Romanoff," he said, "Do you think she would be able to go?"

Harry nodded, "Yes, she would, and I will inform her. Thank you for telling me."

Professor Flitwick smiled, "Our society can be very stubborn when it comes to bloodlines and our laws concerning children are not as… proactive as those in muggle Britain, but they will come around."

Harry nodded again, and could only repeat, "Thank you, Professor."

oOo

He went to the owlery before lunch to Hedwig a letter.

"She's a beautiful bird," a whimsical voice said.

He spun, finding Luna standing in the breezy tower. She wore a coat but no shoes.

"Hi, um yeah, she is," startled that anyone could have escaped his notice, he would have to be more careful, "we became friends pretty quickly actually." Hedwig butted her head into his cheek.

Luna smiled at him, "Owls are very wise."

"Where are your shoes?" Harry asked abruptly.

"Nargals took them," she said, subconsciously curling her toes on the filthy ground.

Harry walked over to her and took off his own shoes. Hedwig flew off with his message when he bent over. He waved his hand at the shoes till they shrunk to a size that looked close enough to her petite feet. "Here, take mine until you find yours."

She shook her head, her blonde curls followed the motion. "I can't. My feet are dirty."

Harry would have given her his socks too but they weren't the nicest. "These are old shoes, it's okay."

Looking at him with luminous eyes, she dipped her head in a sort of bow and slipped on the shoes. Thankfully not the trainers he went running in this morning.

"Thank you, Harry," she said, voice small.

He hugged her, and she hugged him back. "We'll find your shoes," he promised.

* * *

Natasha joined Harry on a floor that had no portraits on his way to the Headmaster's office.

The Headmaster was an old man with a long beard and a sky-blue pointed hat, his eyes seemed to twinkle on Harry and twinkle more when his gaze focused on her.

She didn't trust him for an instant. Natasha had the strongest urge to take Harry out of this room and flee. But she didn't let that urge show in her face or in her body.

Instead, she greeted Harry's parents warmly, "Lily, James, how are you both?"

Lily glared at her, for a split moment before returning her gaze to her son, "Harry, how are you? How do you like Hogwarts so far?"

James gave Natasha a half smile, but his attention quickly swung back to Harry as he answered.

He shrugged, "It's fine."

Natasha thought he might be more enthusiastic if she hadn't laid down an ultimatum of them staying for three years. Though, she was sure that Lily and James would be elated when they heard of this decision.

"Mrs. Romanoff-"

"Ms." Natasha corrected, she had been married once, she had not taken his name, and she would not be known as his Mrs.

"Ms. Romanoff," the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore said genially, "I was not aware you would be joining us."

Filius Flitwick let out a soft sigh, and Minerva McGonagall- from Harry description her, she watched Natasha like a cat sizing up its prey. Aside from the Potters and the Headmaster, they were the only additions in the room.

"This is a parent-teacher conference, I am Harry's parent," she stated, keeping her voice tonelessly pleasant.

The skin around the old man's eyes tightened, "Harry is a Potter."

Harry bared his teeth at the old man and asked, "When are you going to get it through your thick skulls. My. Name. Is. Romanoff." He sounded like he had to repeat that a thousand times.

Dumbledore gave him a pleasant smile, "My dear boy, in the Wizarding World, bloodlines count for much. If not so in magical power, but in our legal system, in our society. No matter who raised you, James and Lily Potter will always be your rightful parents."

Harry opened his mouth to protest but it was James who spoke first, "No, Albus."

"No?" the man questioned, "Why are neither of you protesting? You would easily retain custody over Harry if you brought it to the courts."

Natasha watched the Potters closely, not caring what the old man would do and  _knowing_  what Harry would say.

The Potters shook their heads, clearly unhappy, but wise enough to know that they would lose such a battle. Lose long before it reached any court.

"Because, old man," Harry growled, "You seem to be the only person in this room suffering from the delusion that I would let myself be 'retained.' If anyone tries to separate me from my mother, we will be gone before you could muster a sneeze."

Natasha rather liked Harry's Russian accent, she didn't know if that was because it was familiar or because she was feeling ever so slightly possessive.

Neither Lily nor James seemed the slightest bit surprised at Harry's words.

Dumbledore, however, kept pressing. "The Potters are good people."

James, once more, spoke before Harry could, "This isn't about us, Albus. Besides, he's fourteen, in a few short years, he will be a legal adult. There will be no custody battles."

"So how were your first two weeks?" Lily asked Harry, seemingly not giving a shit about the Headmaster's positioning.

McGonagall cleared her throat, "Let's start with subject to subject."

"He's rather talented at Charms," Filius shot in.

"And rather dismal at Potions," Harry said, "I don't think I could pass a written exam for Herbology either."

"No surprise there," Natasha said as she took a seat by Lily who glared at her as it blocked her a seat away from where Harry sat down next to Filius.

"And why is that?" Dumbledore asked, "Mr. Potter appears skilled in many subjects, yet dramatically worse in others."

"Hey!" James mock protested, "I graduated within the top of my year, behind Lils of course."

Harry sent his father a small smile.

Dumbledore said nothing, waiting for Natasha to answer, but she only sat back in her seat. If he thought he could break her with the silent treatment and disapproving eyes, he had another thing coming.

"What other subjects do you like?" Lily asked, leaning forward in her seat to see Harry better.

"I'm pretty good at runes, it's an old Celtic based language, I think. I have never learned any of those before and it's interesting. Definitely related to the Norse mythos anyhow. Arithmancy is also cool, this magic system is so removed from physics and natural law most of the time so it is fascinating to see it connect mathematics, geography, geology, and astrology, with possible future outcomes of our planet. All of Professor Vector's lectures match what normal people have been able to predict with science. Oh, and I'm really good at astrology. My star chart is catching up to the rest of the class."

"The correct term is muggle," Dumbledore corrected, in an all too reasonable voice.

Harry, as she had raised him, didn't fall for his appeasing tone, "Muggle sounds derogatory. I think I prefer the American's word for it, no-maj, which is much more literal. No magic, none-magical person, or even, I guess, not a mage. Muggle sounds-belittling."

Lily was smiling proudly at Harry, and James was smiling at his wife, as if it were something she would have said.

Dumbledore bowed his head, "Perhaps you are right, but of course, it isn't something we say to their faces."

Natasha shook her head slightly, she knew people, and she knew that was a lie. She would be very surprised if wizards and witches didn't say it to no magical people's faces.

"You're also taking Defense Against the Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures," Lily prompted.

Harry's expression fell a little, "Those are both disappointing. Hagrid is very kind but I don't like the blast ended skrewts. Moody is a bastard who should be fired because he's-" he shook his head, "He should have stayed retired."

James and Lily looked startled by this, and Lily asked, "Moody can be a bit off-putting, but he is extremely knowledgeable, Harry. He trained James, Sirius, and I."

"So," Harry began, "he cast the Imperius Curse on you too?"

Lily expression went bleak at this, and James asked in a low voice, "He did what?"

"Alastor has been spoken to," Dumbledore said.

Lily and James exchanged a look.

Natasha spoke up then, "I would like it explained what the Imperius Curse is."

Harry had told her, of course, but she wanted someone to say it out loud.

"The Imperius Curse takes over another person's will, but it can be fought against," the Headmaster supplied smoothly.

Filius continued, "It is also one of the three unforgivables, spells that if used on another living person is punishable by a lifetime in our prison. The other being two being the Cruciatus Curse, the torturing curse, and the Killing Curse."

"Yes," Natasha said drily, thinking of all the Death Eaters she had killed, "because torturing and killing others would be illegal."

Harry snorted, then cover his mouth but he couldn't suppress his laughter. She would have glared at him or kicked him in the shin had the others not been staring.

"I don't find anything funny in that statement," Dumbledore said sternly.

Harry gulped down another bubble of laughter and gave his mother a sheepish look. He settled on shaking his head and said, "Nothing, just… killing people is bad."

"And why isn't Alastor Moody in prison?" Natasha asked, ignoring her son. She would be discussing this with him later.

"The Imperius can be fought off, the others cannot, and it was in controlled circumstances," the Headmaster said.

"Harry," James began, "What did Moody make you do?"

Harry glared, "He didn't make me do anything, he pointed his wand at me without warning, the spell went through my shield, he invaded my mind, and I, in turn, blew him off his feet -foot and peg. No one is allowed to attack me outside a sparing."

James blinked at him, "So your will was stronger than his?"

"That isn't the point," Harry said, "he's a teacher who attacked a student. And just because he shouts 'constant vigilance' periodically doesn't give him the right to point a weapon at me."

James looked at Natasha with something like approval on his face, Lily, however, was glaring at the headmaster.

"If he screws up again, Albus, I want him out. If he's become this unstable then he shouldn't be around children."

Dumbledore sighed, "He is one of the best."

"He  _was_  one of the best," Lily corrected him.

Dumbledore raised a brow, "Are you offering your expertise."

Natasha watched the conflict on James and Lily's faces, clearly, their jobs as Aurors meant much to them. So much so, that the draw of being nearer to their son wasn't enough to have them jumping at the position.

She decided it was a good sign, perhaps they weren't as broken as they had appeared.

McGonagall stepped into the conversation at this point, "Moody is under a warning, Albus and I shall begin to look for possible replacements. But this meeting is about Mr. Romanoff's capabilities. Despite Moody's questionable teaching, from all accounts, Mr. Romanoff is one of the best students in the subject. Potions he needs some training in, though I believe over time he will catch up Herbology with a bit of extra self studying or help from friends. Transfiguration is the one subject that he absolutely needs outside help with."

Natasha watched James light up at this, "I can help, that was my best subject."

Harry looked at Natasha and she answered, "Would visiting over the weekends be plausible?"

Some tension in Lily's shoulders went out.

"Absolutely," the Headmaster said enthusiastically.

"I will be present, at least nearby."

Dumbledore said, "No," at the same time Lily asked, "Why?"

"Because I have never sent my son to a private school, and I am not going to miss out time with him until the holiday while his birthparents spend every weekend with him."

Of course, she was already seeing Harry every morning and spying on him in the library, but he was uncomfortable around his birth parents. With her around, he might open up a bit more. Perhaps she should have been pushing him out of the nest, pushing past all his comfort zones. But she knew her son. He could pretend to be social, but he didn't relish it and aside from her, he had never let anyone in fully. The prospect of staying put for three years also had him on edge.

All that, plus the very real dangers of magic and the politics of the Wizarding World… Natasha didn't want to push him more than was necessary.

"That isn't acceptable," Dumbledore said, but Lily and James ignored him.

James nodded, and said to Natasha, "Fair enough."

Harry didn't protest, knowing better than anyone that he needed the help in that subject. Transfiguration was difficult, but Natasha didn't have as hard a time as him, she just wasn't knowledgeable enough to help him with it.

"Speaking of the holidays," McGonagall said, "Mr. Romanoff, as one of the champions will be expected to attend the Yule Ball over Christmas."

Harry's response was immediate, "No. You don't get my holidays too."

"It is tradition," she said.

"Will I lose my magic if I don't attend?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Then I won't be attending."

"Is it on the 24th or 25th?" Natasha asked.

"25th," McGonagall answered.

Natasha looked at Harry, "We could travel then return for that one evening, the most exciting things happen on 24th anyway."

Harry frowned, but sighed, "Fine, but we leave again after the ball."

"Do you know how to dance?" McGonagall asked.

"Of course he does," Natasha said, "We aren't savages."

Harry smirked. She had taken him to many a fancy outing, not because she enjoyed them greatly, but because she was teaching him about high society and how to spy on them.

Lily looked as if she wanted to ask something, then stopped herself.

Instead, James said, "Every New Year's Eve, our friends get together for dinner, if you and your mom would like to come, Harry?"

Natasha suppressed a smile, James was adjusting to these circumstances much faster than his wife.

Harry looked at her and she gave him the signal that it was up to him, "Okay… and maybe… this Christmas eve you can travel with us too?"

Natasha sighed in relief, baby steps, but Harry conceding even that much was monumental.

"Of course, and with this new apparating thing, we can travel here and back in no time."

James shook his head, "To travel that far we would need to arrange a portkey."

She tilted her head, "How do I make one of those?"

"Are you always playing an angle?" Lily snapped, her temper slipping for the first time this evening.

Natasha smiled at her, and leaned closer, "That would depend, Lily, darling, on what angle you want me to play?"

Again, Lily had no clue what to do with her advances and glared at her with a hatred of a thousand suns.

Natasha's smile brightened, "Hmm… I like that game." And she leaned back in her chair.

Harry gave her a raised brow but didn't question it. He had seen her do versions of this before and she had explained it then. Natasha couldn't tell if he approved or not, or whether he simply didn't care.

It wasn't often she couldn't read him.

"I have not given permission for any of this," Dumbledore said.

"That would because we do not require it," Natasha said meeting his gaze.

Some force prickled along her mind, some invasive magic, and she was acting before she had time to process the repercussions. She threw two throwing blades. One ripping off his hat, the other embedding itself within a centimetre of his temple.

She had her wand pointed at the old man, and Harry had a shield up between her and his parents.

Filius and McGonagall sat frozen, clearly worried to raise their wands and push her into action.

"No one," Natasha said softly, "tampers with my mind."

_Been there, done that. Not happening again._

"I wasn-"

"You were," she interrupted, "you are not the first to try it, and I swear, I will make you regret it if you ever try it again, either on myself or my son."

"Albus?" Filius questioned, "What is she talking about?"

McGonagall's jade eyes had gone hard, "Albus is a master Legilimens, better than He Who Must Not be Named, or so it is said."

Dumbledore's friendly demeanour dropped a touch, "Who are you, Natasha Romanoff? No school has heard of you, you are no one's list. Where did you come from?"

Natasha smiled, "I came from Russia."

The twinkle had left the old man's eyes, "You are dangerous."

Her smile grew, "Dangerous enough to keep Harry safe from fools like you. Now if I hear of any more teachers attacking my son, I will be transferring him to another school."

"You cannot do that," he stated, the edge of anger tinted his voice.

She shook her head, "Don't you understand yet? There's nothing I can't do. It is you who has no power here."

"Harry," Lily called, "lower your shield, we won't attack Natasha."

Harry looked at Natasha, and she gave the barest nod, and he lowered the shield.

"Well," Filius said, "I think that is enough excitement for one evening. Harry, why don't you return to your dorm?"

Natasha twitched her wand, and her blades returned to her free hand. The others, aside from Harry, flinched.

Harry gave her a hug before departing, he waved goodbye to his parents, "See you tomorrow."

They waved back, "Goodnight, Harry," they said in unison.

"That was inappropriate," Dumbledore said after the door had shut behind.

"So is using mind magic on myself and my son, now, if you'll excuse me, I have better things to be doing."

She apparated out of the room with a pop and appeared in the new apartment she was now renting above one of the shops in Hogsmeade.

She did love teleportation, very dramatic.

* * *

The silence in the room as Natasha left the room was profound.

"You're not supposed to be able to do that, right?" James asked weakly.

Minerva looked at Albus, "Only the Headmaster is supposed to be able to apparate in and out of the school."

Lily rubbed her forehead, "Great, so she's as powerful as Albus Dumbledore. Perfect, that's just perfect."

"Or," Filius offered, "the school might just like her. On the plus side, we know she means none of the students at this school harm. The wards wouldn't have allowed her in or out otherwise."

James shook his head, thinking on how fast Natasha Romanoff had stood, thrown two muggle blades, and pointed a wand on Albus before they could draw their own wands.

Harry too, had brought up a shield before they had their wands pointed.

Whatever Natasha's history was, she had trained their son to be just as dangerous.

He didn't know if that were a good thing or a bad thing. But he did know that there was much they all needed to learn about the Romanoffs.

* * *

AN: Oh superheroes, such chaos they bring. Comments, thoughts, reactions, or chaotic bearing orcas?


	9. The Potters

KEYNOTE: My Dumbledore is not the cannon Dumbledore, I am not trying to make him so, I am not commenting on his actions in the books: this is an alternative universe.

P.s. From what I garnered from the books, unless you had experience with the mind arts, you shouldn't be able to decern if someone was skimming your mind. It is a rare thing.

Chapter 9 – The Potters

Harry didn't sleep well that night. It was one thing to dislike his birth parents because they meant to take him away from his mom, the only family he knew.

But they didn't want to take him away.

They just wanted to get to know him. Which, of course, was infinitely more terrifying.

For the first time since he discovered they were alive, he let himself wonder what he wanted from them, what he wanted to know…

The first question, oddly, that came to mind was what his extended family was like? What kind of upbringing had his father and Lily had?

He definitely didn't want to meet those people but he was…

He sat up, punched his pillow and laid back down to get comfy.

 _Of course,_  he finally admitted to himself,  _everyone wants to know where they came from._

But he felt guilty wanting that.

He liked his life. His life that was always in motion.

Harry just hadn't realized that in his every changing life that he would be frightened of a different type of change.

Of not motion, but holding ground.

And it was that fear, fear of anything, that disturbed him most.

* * *

The next morning he kept pace with Mom, he ran until he couldn't feel his legs. He ran so long and so hard that he ended up missing breakfast entirely.

Hermione and Padma were waiting for him in the common room. Hermione turned up her nose at his sweaty appearance. Padma seemed to have a much different reaction to his sticky T-shirt and loose running pants.

"Where were you?" Hermione asked.

He waved a hand down at himself, "Working out, like I do every morning."

"You have never missed breakfast before," she said, "and you always come down with the other guys."

"I get up early."

She frowned, "Before curfew?"

He shrugged, "I doubt they would expel me for running the grounds, I'm Hogwarts only champion after all."

She shook her head, "Shouldn't you at least, I don't know, where a sweater. It's November."

He shrugged, "It's not cold."

"Clearly," Padma said, "You're not from India."

"नहीं, लेकिन मैं भारत से प्यार करता हूं। खाना बहुत अच्छा है।"

Her mouth literally popped open and he grinned.

"Isn't there any languages you don't know?" Terry Boot asked, looking up from where he had been trying to read.

"Bulgarian," Harry answered flatly, "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go take a shower."

Something like heat flashed in Padma's eyes, and he gave her a wink before turning his back on her to head up the stairs.

* * *

Hermione whacked Padma's shoulder, "Stop looking at him like that."

Padma smiled sweetly at her, "You have to admit, he's cute."

"He's arrogant."

Padma's smile widened, "You're just jealous."

"What's there to be jealous of?"

Padma gave her a look.

Hermione waved it away, "Okay, okay, he's awesome, but I just don't trust him. No one is that perfect. And you saw what he did with the dragon. Padma, he's okay as a friend, but he might be a really dangerous person."

Padma leaned in to whisper in her friend's ear, "With those muscles, he ought to be."

She giggled at Hermione's perturbed face.

"Oh, come on, Mione, you're the one who started dating Viktor Krum. And you can barely hold a conversation with him."

Hermione tilted her chin up, "Well, I, unlike some people, am learning Bulgarian."

Padma smiled and sang under her breath, "Jeal-lous."

* * *

Harry didn't do much talking at lunch, though he ate about a pound of food more than usual.

Which did not work in his favour, as by the time Professor Flitwick came to get him, he felt like he was going to be sick.

Flitwick took him into an unused classroom that had been outfitted with potions supplies and a cauldron. The windows were big, and the light of the day made the room feel larger than it really was.

Mom and the Potters stood waiting for him. Mom looked at ease, his dad looked -happy if contained, and Lily looked, well, she looked about as nervous as he felt -except he was careful not to let it show.

"Hi, Harry," Lily said, her hands fidgeting, and Harry noted that she wore one plain gold band.

"Hi," he said back.

He wondered if they were poor or if she just liked simple jewellery. Her robes were a soft blue, and it was the first time he had seen her in colour, it brought out the vibrancy of her hair better than the grey robes had.

His dad still wore black, and Harry couldn't help but feel he was looking at an older reflection of himself. He hoped he would get taller though.

Mom hooped an arm with James' and tugged him to the door.

"Hey!" James exclaimed, trying and failing to tug his arm free.

Mom kissed Harry's cheek as they passed, "Have fun."

And the door shut behind them, James still protesting.

The silence in the room as Lily and he stared at each other felt painful to Harry. He swallowed the compulsion to fidget as she had done, or to show any signs of weakness on his face.

He could do this, he told himself. This couldn't be worse than the one time he had 'accidentally' set fire to two million dollars of meth on a ship headed for the United States. Mom had not been happy about that one, mostly because they had still been on the ship and the life boats had gone up with the meth. The 'party' boat hadn't been that big.

So, squaring his shoulders, he walked over to Lily and asked, "So, where do we start?"

* * *

Merlin, but he looked like James, aside from the eyes, her eyes. She was grateful Natasha had left, less grateful she had taken James with her.

Hardly knowing what to do or say, she motioned to the potions book, "You pick a potion."

She hated the warble in her voice. She had waited to have time with her son for thirteen years, and now that he was here she was so afraid she would chase him away.

Harry, on the other hand, looked… bored. He flipped the book with steady hands and confidence that not even James could rival. And it wasn't arrogance, but self assurity.

It made her feel like an emotional fool for being so agitated. She clasped her hands together and squeezed until her knuckles went white.

She could do better than this, she was Lily Potter, the finest female Auror in a century. She had never been given a case she couldn't solve, a bad guy she couldn't defeat, she and James were virtually unstoppable… except when it came to Harry.

He turned the book to her, and she smiled, "Pepperup Potion, perfect, it healing potion, complex to make but not extraordinarily difficult." She almost wished he had picked Draught of Peace, though she wasn't sure it was in this book and it would have been well beyond a novice's skill.

Going into instructor mood, she began to list each ingredient, having him line them up as she described the properties to each one.

As he was chopping up some stems he asked, "So was potions your best subject?"

"No," she said with a smile, "Charms was my best subject."

That got a smile out of him, a small one, but a real one.

Joy flooded her system and she decided that she would do just about anything in the world to get Harry to smile at her.

"I've always liked Charms best too," he said, his voice soft, and if he wasn't always so bold, she would have called his tone -sheepish.

"You were an early bloomer when it came to magic," she said, "both James and my parents spoiled you. You had a full mountain of stuffed animals, and there were a few mornings I would come into the nursery and you would be all but buried by them."

His smile fell and he focused back on the potion.

Realizing she had said the wrong thing, she hurriedly asked, "What was it like, um, I mean, when did you start purposely using your magic?"

He was quiet for a moment and then when he spoke it seemed as though he were picking his words carefully, "Forever, I think. It was funny, most of the time I was teaching Mom stuff. She's powerful, but we were so careful of the wizarding world that most of the time we were just making spells up. Sometimes I thought we would get in trouble, freak normal people out, but very few people believe in magic. And even those who do, are more likely to believe it's a trick or they talk themselves out of what they saw."

"What was the best thing you've ever done with magic?" she asked, hoping he would say something more personal.

His smile came back and he looked up to meet her gaze. "We were hiking in Ecuador, and you know when it rains sometimes but the clouds don't cover the sun?"

She nodded, scared to misspeak.

"Well, weren't exactly on the top of a mountain, but were a point that overlooked where the tree line meets the ocean, and I just thought it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, and the rain slowed, even as the clouds grew closer. But they hadn't slowed, they had collected, little suspended water drops that reflected the sun- and well, it was cool. Completely accidental on my part, but really cool. I just figured out how to do it on purpose last year."

Lily blinked at him, "That sounds incredible."  _And powerful_. It was also more -well more romantic than she thought he would be. It was the way James used to be. Even in his most obnoxious during their years at Hogwarts, he had always been sincere, always done things, that had she not been so stubborn, would have melted her heart. Whether with the cards -that she had secretly kept, with sometimes dorky, sometimes laughably sappy, or little gifts, like a polished white stone he transfigured to read Lily with little orange lily after the scripted 'y'.

Something in her settled with the knowledge that as much as Harry claimed to be a Romanoff, and as much as he was the Mysterious Natasha's son, he was still their son, too, still had pieces of them that had shaped him into the person he was today.

"So," Harry asked, "what was it like growing up in the magical world?"

She laughed, "You'll have to ask your father that one, I am a muggleborn. First and only witch in my family. My parents took it really well, my sister Petunia, not so much. She got so angry when she realized she couldn't transfer to Hogwarts too."

"Are you close with them all?"

She shook her head, "My father passed a few months after you were born, cancer, and my mother followed him a few months later. People say it was from a broken heart, I think it was more likely to a broken liver. She used to be an alcoholic, but she was sober for as long as I can remember, but she picked it back up after my father died, and her body simply couldn't handle it."

"I'm sorry," Harry said.

She winced, realizing she could have been more sensitive, they were his grandparents after all, "My sister blames me for not fixing him magically."

Harry paused in the next step in the potion, "Can magic cure cancer?"

She nodded, "Yes, but the potion that would cure a witch or wizard would kill a person without magic. I don't like the idea that blood counts much for magic, but even I can't argue that some healing potions would work, and glamour spells that wouldn't work, on pure blood, half blood, squib, or muggleborns, have the near opposite effect on muggles."

"What's a squib and what exactly is the definition of pureblood? I get that muggleborn means both your parents were non-magical but…"

"A squib is someone with a magical parent born with no magic. By definition, you would technically be a pureblood, as both James and I are magical, but others might refer to you as a half blood as my blood status is considered 'low.' Most true pureblood families can trace their lineage back hundreds, if not thousands of years."

Something crossed his face and she asked, "What is it?"

He shook his head, "Nothing."

"You can ask me anything, Harry."

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then ventured, "There aren't that many students at this school."

She smirked, "Are you asking if the British wizarding society is inbred?"

He didn't flush like she expected a boy his age to, he just nodded.

Her smile grew, "The Potters are known for marrying muggleborns, and rumour has it, the occasional muggle and squib. But Sirius's family, the Blacks, that's another story altogether."

"Kissing cousins?"

She turned on the heat for their cauldron, "I believe his parents shared the same last name."

He did make a face this time.

She laughed and the rest of their time together was both easier and went by to fast.

* * *

"How strong are you?" James asked Natasha who was sashaying her way down the halls.

He didn't know where she thought she was going but she seemed to be taking stock of everything around her, and not in that, 'Oh! Hogwarts! What a beautiful magical castle!' way but like she was counting the windows and portraits.

And if he hadn't been an Auror, he wouldn't have been able to discern even that, she was a very good actress.

She spun on her feet, but continued walking backwards, "Stronger than you, apparently."

He suddenly understood why Lily wanted to murder her most of the time.

"What were you, really, before Harry?" he asked.

"A ballerina," she said innocently and spun back around as if she was on a stage.

 _Well that explains somethings._  Then abruptly he asked, "So, you like women."

She smiled suggestively over her shoulder at him, "I'm an equal opportunist."

He might have found her alluring if he wasn't starting to get the impression that she was more spider than witch.

"Right," he said, for once, feeling like he needed to defend Lily's honour, "my wife is straight."

"Is she?" she asked, her voice honeyed doubt.

He gritted his teeth, "She married me."

She paused, finally allowing him to catch up to her. She gave him a sympathetic look and patted his shoulder. "Marriage doesn't mean much."

He pulled back from her,  _definitely a spider._  "What would you know? I doubt someone like you ever married."

There was no flirtation on her expression then, and he saw something cold and dark in her green-grey eyes, "I did marry, once."

"Bet you divorced," he said flippantly. Worry had ceased the filter between his words and thoughts. He didn't understand this woman at all. Where he had believed her from the beginning that something magical had truly screwed them all over, was even starting to make himself believe that perhaps Death was more than a storybook character, now though… He hadn't let himself think as Lily had from the very beginning that Natasha Romanoff was something altogether more sinister.

But her answer stalled his thoughts, "I was told my dear husband was dead, he showed up years later trying to kill me and my friends. My old boss killed him before he could finish the deed. It was… a rather unfortunate series of events."

 _Okay,_ James thought,  _maybe she's just-_  "Wait, your ballet boss murdered him?"

Her flirtatious smile returned, though this time it was bright and empty as a muggle lightbulb. "You don't think it is the dancers who own the ballet companies, do you?"

"This all happened before, Harry?"

She nodded, "Harry was never in danger of my past. I cut away from everyone who was a part of my old life."

"But you trained him to be as dangerous as you. Something tells me you didn't learn how to throw knives at the ballet."

Her smile softened to something warmer and vastly more beautiful, "Clearly you've never been to a circus. Harry will never be as dangerous as me, but he does know how to protect himself."

"Did you teach him how to be a ballerina?"

"Nope, I just taught him how to aim and how to perform parkour without injuring himself."

James didn't know what 'parkour' was, but he would be asking Lily about it later.

* * *

Harry was relieved when Mom and his dad entered the room.

Lily was very nice, but she was also fragile and expected more from him than he was prepared to give. He was sort of regretting that they would all be sharing Christmas Eve together.

The potion they had brewed, however, was perfect, and Lily hadn't looked at the book once. He had feared that he wasn't going to learn anything, but she was better at explaining and much more patient with him than either Hermione or Snape.

"Ready for some transfiguring?" his dad asked with a friendly grin.

Lily looked crestfallen but when Mom mentioned the time, she looked at her watch in disbelief.

"Come on," James said, "Let's go outside while it's still light out. Minerva mentioned you were having trouble with tiny objects, so maybe we'll try something bigger."

Harry nodded but internally he was thinking that he was just having trouble in general.

Mom and Lily were walking together behind them and the cool air felt very good on his face. The large field they approached had three tall hoops on either side of the field. Tall stands surrounded the pitch and Harry had a feeling it had something to do with flying. Lily and Mom went to go sit in one of those, and his father pulled rocks out of his pocket.

He tossed them outward, and with a graceful movement with his wand, they enlarged.

Harry waited expectantly.

"Right," his father said, "Transfiguration at its core, is creating something out of nothing."

Harry tilted his head, "Isn't its name misleading then?"

James shook his head, his hazel eyes bright, "No, because the furthest most people ever get is turning one thing into another thing. But even then, it isn't like muggle science, we're still creating something that wasn't there before. The easiest Transfiguration is transforming the actual shape or colour of something." He flicked his wand at a rock -boulder, and it reshaped itself into a square block, then it turned blue. "The hardest is using your imagination to shape your magic into a physical object or animal."

From thin air appeared a basin, that became a trickling, three tiered fountain, and then with another wand swish, James created living bluebirds from his wand.

Harry had to fight to keep his expression even, that was -as the British would say, bloody brilliant.

"Some say human Transfiguration is the most difficult, but it isn't, it is simply one of the more dangerous branches of magic because even the simplest of mistakes can have severe consequences."

Harry was more interested in the birds, "Are they actually alive?"

"Of course."

"But-" he paused trying to gather his words, "but how? They weren't born, can they die? Do they die like other living things or do they go poof?"

"Typically poof. Living creatures born from transfiguration, if performed by a competent wizard, survive until either they are destroyed or the caster who made them passes on. Our magic is alive, therefore, they are too. Animals or created by a charm work the same way."

"But, wait, okay but," Harry had too many questions.

His father smiled at him, "Ask away."

He took a deep breath, then exhaled, "Alright, so first, do they need to eat? How alike are they to real animals? And how far does that go, could you make a human? Also if conjuring is a form of Transfiguration than how can Charms do it too?"

"The animals are as real as the caster either has the ability and intention for. Creating a human, creating any creature with that much -life, would probably kill the caster. The magic to sustain such a thing would be immense, and as good as the imagination is, any human would be lacking. And I only know that from books. Don't ever try to create a human. In addition to being illegal, it is also certain suicide. As for Transfiguration and Charms accomplishing similar tasks, think of them less as separate magics, and more like separate schools. Different approaches to utilizing the same base magic."

Harry's mind was spinning, but this made so much more sense than what anyone or any book had explained to him. "But what about transforming a living thing into an inanimate thing? Do you kill the creature?"

"If you do it wrong, absolutely," James said, "but as like creating a living creature, it goes into a static position. Either when the spell is undone, falls apart because the caster's spell wasn't strong enough, or the caster dies -reverting the creature back to what it was, alive, unaged, and likely very confused. It is possible, but only with intention, to transform a living creature and have them be aware, while transformed. There are some pretty nasty Dark Art variants of that, but some wizards have used that type of transfiguration to hide, as a sort of living furniture. Which was problematic in the war, because the Killing Curse still worked on them."

"So they weren't really inanimate objects then?"

His father nodded, and pushed his glasses up his nose, which reflexively had Harry pushing up his own glasses.

Bad habit.

Smiling, James said, "Thinking of it as a sliding scale between alive and conscious versus-"

"Dead," Harry supplied, "so if you turned hedgehog into pincushion then back into a hedgehog, the original hedgehog would have died and you would be left with a magical hedgehog that would die with you?"

"If that's what you wanted, but if your desire was to turn the hedgehog into a pincushion that could be restored to or would naturally, after a time, revert back to a hedgehog would be completely up to the caster."

"So theoretically, you could kill someone by willing them to be an inanimate?"

"Yes, just as you could kill someone with a blasting charm. Magic is dangerous, Harry, the Killing Curse is just absolute."

"Until us."

James smiled sadly, "Yes, until the Potters."

For once, Harry didn't refute that, he was a Romanoff, but he had died once as a Potter.

* * *

They watched Harry and James from the stands, and from this distance, they looked even more alike.

After a time in silence, Natasha asked, "So, Lily Darling, how was your week?"

"Fuck off."

Natasha chuckled, "I like a woman with passion."

Emerald eyes turned to her, so much like Harry's, but sparking with so much fury that it fascinated her. "Have you ever been seduced by such lame and pathetic lines?"

Natasha leaned in closer to her, so that their shoulders pressed together, Lily didn't show weakness by pulling away, but she stiffened. "That would depend," her voice dropped, "if I wanted to be seduced."

Lily put a hand to Natasha's cheek and pushed her back.

Natasha laughed, still sitting close but at a socially acceptable distance away on the bench.

"Harry said you were in the military."

"A military unit of sorts, yes."

"For who?"

"The Russians and the Americans."

Lily frowned at Natasha, and she had to admit, the woman was adorable. Her anger made her beautiful, but her confusion made her face sweeter. She must have been something when she was happy. "They aren't allies, not recently. They were still in the Cold War with each other before you took Harry."

"I defected to the US side, I had friends who saved me, the Russians… used me."

"But yet you're proud of being Russian."

Natasha lifted her chin, "Despite what people are led to believe, a country is not their government, it's her people. She is the hopes and fears of those people."

Lily didn't back down, "Is Russia Harry's favourite country?"

Natasha shrugged, "I don't know that he has one. He likes travelling, but since we were never able to settle down, I don't think he ever allowed himself to get too attached."

"Stability would be good for him."

Natasha smiled, "I agree, and he isn't happy about the fact that I've decided he will finish school at Hogwarts. We will travel on holidays, of course. But for the next three years, Harry and I shall be settling in Scotland."

"You're staying?" Lily asked, voice hushed, "You're both staying?"

"Yes," she answered, "we are."

She had been correct, Lily was stunningly lovely when her fair face was alight with joy.

* * *

James was certain that once Harry got it, he would get it all. He could feel the magic radiating of his son like heat off a stove in winter.

"Harry, why don't we take a break?"

He shook his head stubbornly, just like Lily. Then he sighed, "It's almost time for dinner anyway, I guess."

James' heart clenched at the thought of parting, so he said, "We have a half an hour left. Do you have any other questions about the wizarding world?"

Harry looked up at him, "What was it like to grow up here? Is mundane stuff weird to you?"

He laughed, "Growing up with magic was pretty incredible, my parents were amazing people who spoiled me rotten. Sirius came to live with us when he was sixteen. His family were also pure blood, but they were a dark lot. But by then Sirius was already the closest thing I had to a brother."

"So your parents passed away too, and you don't have siblings."

Sadness, but not overwhelming sorrow tinged his words, "Yes, they both got sick from dragon pox, wizards and witches have different diseases than muggles. And no, no siblings, but lots, and lots, of cousins. Sirius and I are somehow related, but I never kept much track of the web of our family trees. As for the mundane world being strange, yes, and no, Sirius and I used to get into a lot of trouble out in the 'real world', and that was before Lily finally agreed to date me."

"She turned you down?" Harry asked.

James smirked, and puffed out his chest, "From the moment I saw her I knew she was the one for me."

"And when was that?"

"First year of Hogwarts."

"Isn't that creepy?"

He shrugged, "She was my first crush. I was just lucky enough to grow up enough to one day deserve her. How about you, who was your first crush?"

He flushed, and muttered, "Jamila Fairy."

James grinned, "And where was Ms. Jamila Fairy from?"

Cheeks still red but voice clearer, he answered, "The Bronx, New York. She kicked my ass at a mixed martial arts tournament. I was the only boy willing to spare with a girl. She was older than me by a year and a ring ahead. It was a hundred percent worth the bruises."

"Did you get to know her?"

"No, because some asshat named Yaxley blew a hole in our hotel room. I hate Death Eaters. They can't take a freaking hint. Mom pretended to sue the place for a 'gas' problem."

Cold fury filled James, not at Harry or Natasha, but at those who would dare to attack his son.

"Oh!" Harry exclaimed, "There is something I wanted to ask, I keep meaning to look it up in the library but Hermione shadows me most of the time. What the hell is Quidditch?"

James grinned, his fury melting away. He had missed everything with his son, but he wouldn't miss this.

"Quidditch is a sport we play on brooms," he said, and motioned to the field around them, "Have you ever flown a broom? I mean you had a toy one when you were with us, you nearly killed the cat, but have you since?"

He shook his head.

James turned and waved a hand up at Lily, she stood at once, looking at him for a signal, he flicked his wand and said, "Accio Lily's broom."

And a tiny, pocket sized broom, flew down to his hand.

He turned back to Harry, pulled his own broom out of his own pocket and charmed them both back to regular size. "No time like the present."

He laid both brooms on the ground. "First things first, hold your hand over the broom and say 'up.'"

Harry held his hand out to broom nearest him but didn't say up, the broom came to his hand anyway.

James smiled and did the same, "Now, once you're in the air, just hover for a bit before trying to get height, I'll be here if anything happens."

Harry rolled his emerald eyes at him, "I'm not afraid of heights." But Harry followed James' example after he mounted his broom.

As instructed, Harry stayed low to the ground.

He was a natural, and he picked up speed, that James was found himself pushing to keep up.

When James went up, Harry rocketed upwards, soaring past him. Smiling so hard his cheeks ached, James followed his son into the sky. The sun burst through the clouds as it neared the crest of the mountains.

Harry, as much an acrobat in the air as on the ground, began spinning, diving, and racing.

They didn't talk, they soared.

It was the happiest James had been in thirteen long years.

And then, when they were so high they were in the sunset touched clouds, Harry let go of his broom and plummeted downward.

" _No! HARRY!"_ James screamed, but the wind stole his words, and dived downward, knowing and not caring that he would be too late.

* * *

Up in the stands, Lily shrieked, she raised her wand, but Natasha caught her hand and forcefully lowered it.

Lily turned to punch the other woman with her free hand, but Natasha caught her wrist and twisted her arms behind her back.

"I told you, Lily dear, no more free passes."

"Harry is falling!" She shrieked, " _You damned bitch!_ "

"Look again," Natasha said soothingly, "He's diving."

Lily was staring, and all she could see was her son falling headfirst toward the ground, James diving after him on his broom.

James wasn't going to make it, and her only hope was that he could get his wand raised in time.

Lily sobbed, "He's going to die!"

"No, he's not," Natasha stated, "He's my son."

Lily watched in horror as an entity passed by, her heart breaking.

But something whizzed under him -his broom, and Harry swooped upward, rolling like a butterfly in the wind.

It was James who almost ate dirt. He slowed enough to fall gracelessly to his knees in the grass.

Natasha hugged her from behind, "See, he was just having fun."

Lily's mouth was dry, "It could have been an attack."

"He's gone skydiving before, if it had been attacked he would either be limp or facing outward to fend off an attacker."

Her knees were weak, and as much as she wanted to throw Natasha Romanoff over the freaking stand, in that moment, Lily needed the help to stay upright.

"How-" she tried to say, "How could you-  _How?"_

"Trust," Natasha said, resting her chin on Lily's shoulder and hugging her closer so that Lily could feel the other woman's breasts against her back, "Harry is still a teenager. But he's also competent. You're going to have to learn to trust him, or you'll just be putting him in greater peril."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"When he opens up to you both, he'll try to protect you. You will have to learn how to work with him in a fight."

Lily twisted away from her, and Natasha  _let_  her do it. "This was not a fight!"

"No, it was training."

"It's a game!"

Natasha shook her head, "Harry is daring, competitive, and an athletic enthusiast. You can't give him the ability to fly and not expect him to push the limits."

"He could have died!"

"Harry knows what he's capable of, and you don't think we didn't find a charm for preventing impacts from steep heights? We may never have spent an extensive amount of time in the wizarding world, but there were some things we made a point to discover."

"And why not let me cast that Charm?"

"Because, Harry would have thought less of you."

Lily threw up her hands, "Why!? For Merlin's sake!"

"Because, it was something I would have done, and if you play the mom card too hard, in the beginning, he's never going to let you in."

"That isn't logical! Shouldn't he like me better the more like you I am?"

Natasha shook her head, "He's afraid, Lily."

"Afraid of what!? Why would a child be afraid of his own parents!? We didn't give him up. We didn't abandon him, we never, ever stopped looking for him! I never stopped loving him, I never stopped being his mother!"

"He's afraid of change. And part of him, a part of him that he isn't ready to face yet, is afraid you'll die on him again."

Lily turned her back on the Russian. Gripping the railing hard enough to feel the wood biting into her skin. She needed to get a handle on her emotions. A wash of shame cloaked her, in her own emotional turmoil, she had become nothing but rage, determination, and selfishness.

Heaven help her, she could do better than this, she had to.

* * *

James was on his damned hands in knees, his heart thundering in his chest, his head spinning. He was going to be sick. He was going to lose it on the pitch just like that one time a Slytherin bulger had got him square in the gut after a big breakfast.

He put a hand to his pounding heart trapped by the bones and muscles of his chest.

Harry landed in front of him, and James looked up to his son's concerned face, though his eyes were still bright from the 'fun' he had had diving without a damned broom.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

James couldn't answer, if he opened his mouth -it would be bad.

His pulse was still thundering when Harry knelt beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder, "Are you alright, Dad?"

_Dad._

James was able to swallow.

_Dad._

He hadn't ever expected to hear that from his son again in this lifetime, he hadn't expected to hear it in a Russian accent either but… looking at Harry now, here,  _alive_.

Not a red splatter on the Quidditch pitch.

It was enough.

He straightened and pulled Harry into a hug, and Harry hugged him back.

"Please," James begged, "don't do that to me again."

Harry patted him on the back, "I'll give you a heads up next time. I do like Quidditch."

James pulled back, "That wasn't Quidditch, that was flying. We'll have to get Sirius out here and maybe Remus, so Lily and I can teach you and Natasha how to play."

Harry grinned, "Cool."

James pulled him into another hug, holding him tight and holding back the words,  _I love you, son._

* * *

Harry was grateful when the Potters left, leaving him and his mother alone for the walk back to the castle.

"Maybe I shouldn't have let go of the broom."

Natasha laughed, swung an arm over his shoulders, and pulled him in so she could kiss his temple. "Well, if they are going to be travelling with us, it's best we break them into our ways. But, yes, perhaps you could have been a bit gentler with their nerves."

* * *

James and Lily laid on their backs in bed, staring up at the ceiling, both lost in their own thoughts.

"My mum was right," Lily said, breaking the silence, "children are hard."

James sighed, putting his hand over his face, "So was mine." He let his hand drop and he looked at his wife whose emerald eyes were already focused on him. "Boys are walking heart attacks."

* * *

AN: Thoughts, reactions, or free falls? Pretty, pretty please?


	10. Enemy of My Enemy

_Spoilers_   **END GAME**  and Spiderman  **TRAILER** : I will spoil who lives and who dies from End Game, and one natural 'no, duh' that was revealed in the trailer.

KEYNOTE: I use one thing from the 'Far From Home' trailer, the rest is really,  **I swear** , pure fanfiction, ideas inspired by my childhood obsession with Artemis Fowl.

Chapter 10 - Enemy of My Enemy

"Hello, Mr. Romanoff."

"Hello Fred, hello George," Harry said, making eye contact with the correct twin.

Only the slight surprise on their faces gave away that he had remembered correctly which twin was which. Each of them slung an arm around his shoulder and Harry did his best not to tense when they smiled evilly at him.

"We knew," George started.

"That you were following us," Fred continued.

"That day we pranked our brother."

"And what day was that?" Harry asked smoothly.

Fred wagged a finger at him, "No, don't try that with us, we  _saw_  you hiding behind the armour."

And Harry kicked himself for not realizing that as soon as he had figured out what the map was. They would have seen his name behind theirs, but he didn't let it show. "Did you both hit your head? I don't hide behind armour."

They stopped, and George stepped in front of him, putting a hand on Harry's chest, "How did you get it?"

"This mystical map?" Harry asked coolly, "I don't know, because I didn't 'get it.' Now, stop touching me."

Fred tightened his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Listen, Romanoff, we like you, really, we do, but-"

"Three," Harry began counting.

" _But_ ," George emphasized, "You can't steal fro-"

"Two."

"Quit counting," Fred snapped, "Just give us-"

"One," Harry said, and before the twins could so much as draw breath to speak, he had them twins on their backs.

He was pretty used to fighting people who had even a mediocre level of self defence -but that had been truly pathetic on their parts. He had merely twisted Fred's arm and swung George by grabbing his wrist.

"I don't have your damn map, and if you know what's good for you, you will leave me alone."

Fred sat up, holding his arm to his chest, and said angrily, "You should have been in Slytherin."

"Yeah," George said sitting up with a wince, holding his wrist like a broken wing.

 _Such dramatics_ , Harry thought,  _I didn't even strain anything._

"Because you're a snake," George completed his taunt.

Harry rolled his eyes and said dryly, "Very clever. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have books to read."

* * *

"He didn't even mention who might have put Harry's name in the Goblet," Lily ranted pacing their new apartment.

They had both wanted to buy a house, but when walking into the nice homey space the realtor had found for them…

Well, the reality that they were never getting Harry back had sunk in.

James and Lily's chance at a stable normal family had expired in the last decade. Harry wasn't one to want to settle down in any one place, and even if he did, it would be with Natasha, not them. At most, they would get visits.

And not even James deluded himself that they could handle another child, emotionally they wouldn't have been able to cope.

But aside from these sad revelations, the new apartment was a vast step up from their old one. The space was completely open, and they had traded grey for white, with bright splashes of oranges and reds from throw blankets and pillows on the white furniture. The floors were hardwood and gleamed with finish so polished one could practically see their reflection in it. The kitchen counters were granite, and there were three guest rooms in addition to the master bedroom.

It was a large, expensive apartment in London, but they could afford it. Even after travelling on their every free day off, they were still wealthy. Magical transport didn't cost much and they had never really gone sightseeing or enjoyed being abroad.

"James, are you even listening to me?"

He looked up sharply, and shook his head, he'd been staring at a blank wall thinking they should put a painting up, though he had not the slightest idea as to what he would choose. "Sorry, Lils. But I agree, Dumbledore is hiding things from us. We don't know if he was apart of what was done to Harry with this tournament, but we do know he had something to do with Halloween."

"That damn prophecy."

James closed his eyes and replayed those words in his head, "Why was he so sure the prophecy meant Harry?"

"Who?" she asked, "Dumbledore or Voldemort?"

"Either," he said, "both. It could have easily have been Alice and Frank's boy."

She sat on a stool, and grabbed her mug of coffee that had cooled enough to drink, "I wish we knew what the Death Eaters knew."

"That's why we asked for a meeting with the Malfoys, isn't it?"

She made a face, "I don't know if I can play civil long enough to get anything out of them."

"Why not ask Snape for help?" as soon as he said the words he wanted to take them back, but Snape was better than the Malfoys.

But Lily was already shaking her head, "He's too close to Dumbledore, if he knew what we were up to…"

James sighed, "Same with Remus. He's my friend, but his blind faith… I just can't confide in him."

Something crossed Lily's expression.

"What?" he asked.

She shook her head again, "Nothing, it's, well it's just that he thinks it is because he's a werewolf that we don't invite him over as much as Sirius."

James sighed, "I know. And speaking of Sirius, where the hell is he? We need a plan before we g-"

Sirius popped into the living room, as it was a muggle building he couldn't pop into the hall as would have been polite. "I'm here! Cissa is going to be just pleased as punch when she has to greet me too."

"She'll get over it," Lily said, "She pretends she's never met you before, I don't know why that would change while she is treating you as a guest."

"Remind me why we're doing this again?" he asked as he went to the coffee maker to pour himself a mug. "My family, excluding Andromeda, Ted, and Tonks, are all dragon dung heaps."

"Because," James said slowly, "We need to knock Dumbledore down a peg or two, or else he's never going to be manoeuvred into revealing any useful information."

"Yeah," Sirius said, leaning against the counter with a large mug in hand that had dancing penguins wearing party hats and devil horns on it, as well as a caption that read, 'When Hell Freezes Over.' "But what do want to happen? Lucy has been trying to go after Dumbledore for ages."

"Not with our help," Lily countered.

"Dumbledore is never going to open up to us if we go at him head on," Sirius said.

"That's what Sev and Remus are for."

James shook his head, "Sirius has a point, Lils."

She glared at him, "You both agreed to this plan before today."

Sirius and James exchanged a look, and James said, "True, and I'm not saying I'm not still infuriated with the old coot, but now that the hour is upon us, Lily, there will be no going back from this if we take a public stand against him."

She put down her mug, determination on her face, "Just because he's on the right side, doesn't mean he can't make mistakes, just because our world looks up to him, doesn't mean he should be allowed to get away with everything. James, he messed with our life, and Order of the Phoenix members or not, we didn't sign Harry up to be a part of his games. And if he truly believes Voldemort isn't gone yet, those games are far from over."

It was Sirius who said what needed to be said, "Yeah, but even if we want to go against Albus Dumbledore, Greatest Wizard of Our Age, the Malfoys have no reason to trust us, and none of us are really good a tact."

No, tact wasn't any of their specialities. They all solved cases by being ruthlessly persistent, powerful, and with a general lack of self-preservation invoked that their typical suspects didn't stand a chance, so long as they stayed within apparating distance. James and Lily were well versed in going abroad, but they were legally limited in what they were allowed to do on foreign soil.

And now that it was said out loud, even Lily looked a bit crestfallen, "So what do you suggest we do?"

James sighed, "I was thinking… perhaps, perhaps we ask Natasha to join us."

Lily glared at him.

"If we really want to do this, don't you think she would be useful?"

"I just want to meet the woman," Sirius said cheerfully.

Lily sighed, "It would be interesting to see how she handled herself with people like the Malfoys, she nearly killed Dumbledore, after all."

"She did what!?" Sirius exclaimed, nearly choking on his coffee.

Lily waved his reaction away, "Fine, we'll ask, the meeting isn't until the afternoon, and as it is just after breakfast, we should have enough time to catch her up to speed on our suspicions."

James sighed in relief, and he, unlike Lily, wasn't really reluctant to see the other witch. After getting to know his son a bit, he had realized how close the two were. So the closer to Natasha they got, the closer to Harry they would be.

* * *

Year 2024, In a Universe Far Away

* * *

"MJ, come on, I have to show you this," Peter Parker said, gently pulling on his friend's hand.

"Since when do you have a lab?" she asked, stepping into the renovated apartment above the one Peter and his Aunt May actually rented.

"That isn't important," he said, so excited his words tripped over themselves. He grabbed a little dish off the table, "This is what's important!"

She didn't take it from him, "A petri-dish? You brought me to your top secret, disguised lab, and you want to show me a petri-dish?"

He sighed, but his excitement didn't dim, "It's not a petri-dish, well, it is, but that isn't the point. It's what's  _inside_  the petri-dish."

"Enlighten me," she said, voice as dry as a desert at high noon in summer, but her lips twitched upward despite herself.

He seemed to vibrate with energy and began speaking about science nerd stuff so fast, as smart as MJ was, she was having a hard time following. "Sooo," she said finally, "You made an artificial plant?"

"Yes, no, well yes, but not exactly. It's bio-tech. It's not so much a synthetic plant as it is a living machine. I didn't make a piece of tech, I didn't grow cells, I grew tech into cells! Bio-tech, it's, it's the next step!"

She shook her head, "Peter, that is both amazing and terrifying. Next time robots take over the planet, I'm blaming you, and I'm not paying your bail."

He pouted at her, "It isn't going to take over the planet. Like you said, it's like a plant, it isn't a self-sufficient thinking thing, it's just-"

She held up her hands and wiggled her fingers, " _alive!"_

He grinned, "Yep, it's alive."

She rolled her eyes, but grinned back, "Plants can be pretty crazy, I mean, plants grow in the cracks of sidewalks. Plants are like the ultimate survivors."

"Well," Peter said, not dismissing her implied warning, "This is the really early stages, I haven't had success outside of the petri-dish." He smiled, "So we,  _you_ , have time to come up with scenarios."

"Doomsday is upon us," she prophesied, and her smile grew.

Peter thought she was the most beautiful person in the universe, and the more he got to know her, the more he thought so, "If you aren't careful, people will think you're a super villain."

"Please," she said, waving his comment away, "I'm just me."

"And you're pretty great."

She looked away, to hide her smile, "And what else do you have going for you in this la-  _Peter!"_

"What? What!?" he asked scanning the room.

She was staring down at his hand, " _That!_ "

He looked down at his hands and something was bleeding out of the petri-dish, he dropped it, and liquid spilled out onto the floor. The room was flooding and with not enough time to so much as reach the door, Peter scooped MJ into his arms and jumped back onto the table.

"What did you make?"

Peter was staring down at the substance, it glowed and pulsed, ruby and black. "I didn't make this… I think, I think it's an infinity stone."

"I thought those were all destroyed."

"So did I!" he exclaimed, his panic rising with the waves of the liquid.

"Also, not to be a stickler, but it looks more like syrup than a stone."

Peter was looking around the room for something, anything to help him, but the lab was already flooded, and he didn't have his suit on. His tech and the stuff he had inherited was in his book bag on the ground below the water-stone-thing.

"Which stone is it?" MJ asked becoming more clear headed.

"The red one."

"I can see that! But what does it do?"

"I don't know," he said looking up at the ceiling, wondering if they could escape through a vent or something.

"I thought you were an Avenger!"

"They brought me in late for the magic stone briefing!"

He picked her back up and jumped for the ceiling vent, but he was too late and with a wash of liquid that was both heavy and light, cold and scolding, they were swallowed into the aether.

Reality itself was undone.

* * *

1994, A Potterverse, Malfoy Manor

* * *

Natasha was pleased that the Potters had come to her for help, and they didn't even know how well suited she was to this kind of job.

Manipulate two high classed bad guys into doing what they already wanted to do? How could they make it any easier?

Answer: invisibility cloak.

James had had the correct suspicion that she was more than just someone in the military and would be able to snoop around the house easier than the rest of them. She was meant to check the house for anything that they might be able to use as blackmail. It was the type of overkill she supported in a plan.

For her own plans, she had no intention of giving the cloak back, it was her free ticket through Hogwarts, with this in her purse and the map, nothing could stop her.

"I like your robes," Sirius, the Potter's best friend and Harry's rightful godfather, said as they walked up to the drive.

Her robes were form fitting but loose, comfortable, and the colour was the deepest shade of Persian blue, embroidered with silver. She was easily the best dressed, and she knew it would win her points with the Malfoys and distract Mr. Malfoy in particular.

She smiled at him demurely, "Thank you, Mr. Black."

He laughed, a barking sound that was nearly startling in its intensity, "Don't call me that, I'm Sirius, well, in name at least."

There were shadows in his eyes, but he didn't seem as broken as the Potters.

Natasha smiled slightly then dipped her head, letting her hair fall forward, she saw Sirius's face softened out of the corner of her eye.

He fell for her act, hook, line, and sinker.

She had to fight not to smile wider when she spotted the flash of jealousy on both Lily and James's face as they frowned at her and Sirius.

Of course, they wouldn't have called it jealousy, they would have said they were being protective over their friend, but she was an old hand at this game, and the Potters had neglected themselves too far to be healthy individuals that could resist her charms.

The door was opened by a-

"What is that?" Natasha asked aloud, it was too weird looking, like a child, a ragged, dirty child. But it was too misshapen to be human.

"A house-elf," Sirius said with no love in his voice.

Lily huffed at him. "Hello, who are you?" she greeted the creature.

It squeaked at this, lowered its bulbous eyes and said in a high voice, "Master told Dobby to invite you into the parlour."

 _Great, they have slaves, backward British society indeed._  Natasha glared at James and he shook his head slightly, without a word, telling her that no, he didn't approve of this either.

Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy were as immaculately dressed as she was and they spent the good part of an hour exchanging barbed small talk. Natasha did all of the talking on their side, the other three sat in rigid, uncomfortable silence, except for Sirius who was seeing how many sugar cubes he could put into Lily's cup of tea before she stopped him.

Lucius, as he wished to be called, was completely hers, Natasha could have convinced him that the moon was made out of Swiss cheese at this point, and Narcissa had softened her icy disapproval to cool interest that seemed to be more than Sirius had been expecting was possible.

"Aside from finally finding civilized company, cousin," Narcissa said,  _finally_  cutting to the point, "what brings you all to our home?"

James cleared his throat, "Albus Dumbledore."

Narcissa expression hardened over like watching a video of a lake freezing in fast forward. "And what does  _he_  want?"

"Presumably," Natasha said, redirecting her attention, "for us not to be here."

The blonde tilted her head like a bird, "Explain."

Lily took in a deep breath, then in an exhale, she said, "We think Dumbledore put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire."

Their eyes widened, and Natasha watched in satisfaction as they caught them, like a leg in a bear trap.

Lucius leaned back in his seat, obviously wishing to seem in control and failing because of the eagerness reflected in his steel-grey eyes. "You want to press charges."

"No," Lily said, "we want to ruin him."

"You?" Narcissa laughed, her laughter was tight and short as if she didn't laugh much, "Why should we believe that the  _Potters_ , Aurors, and Order of the Phoenix members would want to drag Albus Dumbledore's name through the mud?"

"Because," James said, speaking up, "He put our son in danger. He's interfered too often in our lives. It must end, our lives are not pieces in his game. Age is not the same thing as wisdom."

"Who are we to argue," Lucius said, his eagerness did not show in his voice, but it did in the fact that he did not argue with them further, even if just for show.

They were so easy.

Natasha asked, "Is there a lady's room I might use?"

"Down the hall to your right," Narcissa said with a polite smile, the suspicion in her eyes was not for her, and Natasha was momentarily forgotten the second she left the room.

Luckily, this hall was not lined with portraits, and she slipped the cloak on, and made quick work of searching the Manor. She steered clear of the bedrooms, people like the Malfoys wouldn't be so classless to hide something in their intimate space nor in a guest room.

The manor was large, but not that large, and secret floors weren't that secret if you were a professional. And Natasha Romanoff was very professional.

* * *

Peter and MJ landed in the woods, the aether dissolving around them. It soaked into the earth and disappeared as if it had never been.

"Peter," MJ said, face squashed to his chest, "too. Tight."

He released her automatically, and she fell back into the dirt.

"Oh my God, are you okay? MJ?"

She ran a hand through her hair, "Yeah, I mean, after being attacked by a primal force of existence and being transported to the woods, yeah, I'd say being alive is okay."

Peter patted himself down, "I don't have my phone on me, it was in my bag."

She pulled hers out of her pocket. Unlocking it she glared down at where her GPS said they were. "Peter," she said, "We're in Northern Scotland."

"No way! Let me see."

She passed him the phone, and she laid back on the ground, staring up at the trees.

"I'll call Happy," he said. Then after a moment, he cursed, "No signal."

She sighed, "Figures." Getting to her feet, she said, "Let's get out of the woods. Which way do we go?"

"Um, I don't know, the GPS isn't working."

"Let me see," she said, holding her hand out, but the moment the phone touched her hand again, the screen went black. "Perfect."

They looked around them and Peter's spider sense was going off as if someone was petting his fur backwards -well, if he had fur, which he didn't!

"Let's just pick a direction and keep walking, no one knows where we went," he said, "So staying put isn't going to do us any good."

"Don't worry, Scotland is definitely going to be their first choice."

He sighed.

They walked for what felt like hours, and Peter kept looking over his shoulder, searching for things he couldn't see.

Oddly, MJ didn't seem to be having any problems, in fact, the longer they walked the surer her footsteps seemed to become.

Until they finally came to a break in the trees.

"Okay, that's a cool castle," she said.

Peter frowned, "What castle?"

She gave him an exasperated look, "That one, loser."

"MJ, I don't see anything."

She grabbed his hand and tugged him forward, when they came past the treeline, the castle appeared out of thin air.

He gasped, "Okay, okay, you were right, totally right, that's a big castle."

She started for it, but he held her back, "Don't, MJ, wait."

She looked at him, "Come on, the sun is setting."

"Let's look for a town, there can't be one too far from here."

"Peter-"

"I have a bad feeling about that place, everything in me tells me its wrong." It was like the woods, but instead a tingling sensation, it was more like a loud angry buzz. That castle wasn't normal, and that was setting aside the fact that it had appeared out of thin air.

MJ, however, seemed to be pulled toward it.

Peter didn't let go of her hand, "Please, MJ, trust me on this one, please?"

She stopped walking toward it, but even as they circled the giant structure, she stared at it as if compelled. She didn't talk, and it worried him.

They did find a town after the light from the sun had all but faded.

"I guess we found a Renaissance Fair," MJ said.

The people here were certainly dressed weird, "But where are the knights?"

An older man with a long beard and longer hair, frowned down at them as he passed.

_Sure, we're the weird ones._

They entered a shop, a candy shop, with candy that… moved?

"Ice Mice?" MJ asked under her breath as she read one of the labels.

"What can I do for you today?" a man behind the counter asked jovially.

"We're just looking for a phone, I need to make a call home, please?" Peter asked.

The man smiled at him condescendingly, "We don't have any muggle contraptions in this town, you're welcome to use my fireplace though."

Peter blinked at him.

MJ asked, "I'm sorry, did you just say no one has a phone here?"

Peter was a bit more concerned about the fireplace remark.

"That's right, this is a proper town, no muggles live here, a few squibs, but no muggles."

"Right," MJ said, "how much for a lollipop?"

"Five knuts."

Peter took her arm, "All out of knuts, sadly. Sorry to bother you, sir." And they left as quickly as they could without running.

"Wait!" he called as the door shut behind them, "You can still use the floo powder!"

They made it back out into the street. "The inn," MJ said, "Let's try the inn. Someone there must be sane, one of the guests at least."

"No phones," the owner told them, "Nothing muggle is going to work here, all magic."

"Magic?" Peter repeated, "What kind of magic?"

The man frowned at him, but was called away by another customer.

"Maybe we're not in Scotland," MJ whispered.

"Peter Parker?"

Peter spun, and saw the very last person he would have expected to see, "Black Widow?"

The very lovely Natasha Romanoff appeared before them, wearing dark blue robes. She peered down at them, her hair longer than when he had last seen it, but she looked unaged, and most surprisingly out of anything that had happened,  _alive._

"Great," MJ said, "We died. I blame you, Parker."

* * *

AN: Reactions, thoughts, ideas, or spiders, pretty please?


	11. TBD

Trailer SPOILER: So the only thing I snagged from the trailer was that MJ (Micelle Jones - Zendaya) moment.

END GAME: if you haven't seen END GAME don't read further.

AN: Welp, last chapter received a lot of negative or doubt-filled reviews. Oh well, this story keeps getting better and I'm enjoying it more and more.

Chapter 11 - TBD

Natasha had never expected to meet anyone from her world again, least of all Tony's prodigy. She had met Peter on a few occasions, and she knew of him, knew his background, but she didn't really know him.

Which was problematic as he and his girlfriend had just become her responsibility.

As they entered her apartment she had to ask, "Did either of you die to get here?"

"No," Peter said at once, "it was an infinity stone."

"The red one," the girl said blandly.

Natasha blinked, "You're telling me another stone from another universe transported you here? Was anyone wielding it?"

It was his turn to blink, "A multiverse, we're in a different universe! But that means-"

The girl cut him off, "No one was wielding it, it just appeared as a red syrup that spilled into Peter's lab."

"It was the Reality Stone, or should I say, a reality stone." Then to the girl, "I'm Natasha Romanoff by the way, no one knows me as Black Widow here."

"Michelle Jones, but you can call me MJ, if you want."

"What's with the Russian accent?" Peter asked.

Natasha coughed, then switched to American, "It's a part of my back story here. What year did you leave from? You were a part of Thanos's Snap, correct?"

"2024, and yeah, everyone came back. We won. Speaking of which, where are the other Avengers?" Peter asked, "Even if this is a separate universe, they have to exis-"

He stopped when he saw Natasha's expression.

MJ asked, "Is it completely different, like we wouldn't be able to find anyone related to us?"

"I haven't been able to find a single person that might have been from our world, I could be wrong, but the timelines are extremely different. The Starks never existed, neither did Steve Rogers, as a super soldier or recruit."

Peter took in a deep breath, then let it out, he stood up from the couch and began pacing, "That's okay, that's okay. All I need to do is find a way to recreate the time machine you guys used then, I don't know, um find a way to find the correct-"

"No," Natasha said flatly.

MJ sank back into the couch, clearly seeing what was coming.

"No?" Peter repeated, "We have to get home."

She shook her head, and said gently, "I'm sorry, Peter, MJ, it just isn't possible, and even if it were, it is too dangerous."

Heat rose to Peter's cheeks, "Of course it's possible, we got here, didn't we? We can get back, I just need-"

"You would need to understand time travel and the multiverse before anything, and I know you're smart Parker, but that's above your pay grade. Additionally, there is no tech here to help you. Stark Industries doesn't exist, I haven't seen a single definitive sign of alien life here. The technology is so far behind, even for the nineties."

"Wait, run that by us again?" MJ questioned.

"The year is 1994."

Peter sank to the floor, "But… how, how did you get here Ms. Romanoff?"

"Natasha is fine. When I died, Death brought me here due to some prophecy or whatever. I've been here for over thirteen years."

"Death?" Peter asked, "Is a person?"

She shrugged, "I was dead, I died. Then I wasn't, then I was here. I don't have a better explanation."

"Is Death a woman?" MJ asked.

Natasha's lips twitched, "I couldn't tell."

She nodded seriously.

"Magic!" Peter explained, "We can get back using magic."

"No," Natasha said, "the Infinity stones are out of the question even if they did exist here, you would have absolutely no way to wield them. And the magic of this world is powerful and wild, but I don't think humans could direct it for interdimensional travel."

"But-"

"How old are you both?" she interrupted.

"Sixteen," they said in unison.

"Then consider yourselves to be under my custody. Neither of you are to try crossing the multiverse until you're at least twenty-one."

"But-" Peter tried again.

"Do you want to die?" Natasha asked bluntly, "I am so sorry this happened to you both, but no one here can help us and the dangers, the infinite possibilities of failure… if it was just time travel, or if it was even a mirror world of our own, but it isn't. I won't let you get yourselves killed trying the impossible."

"But if it can be done once it can be done again," Peter said with determination.

Natasha opened her mouth to speak but MJ beat her to it, "She's right, Peter, this sucks, but we aren't dead. Not being dead is good. Natasha, do you have a bathroom I could use?"

"Down the hall," she answered.

They waited in silence for MJ to return, Peter sank to the floor resting his chin on his knees as he thought.

Natasha let him think. She hadn't truly lost anything coming to this world, and it was a fate far better than death, but these two had families.

It worried Natasha that the stones could transcend the multiverse on their own, that was  _if_  the Reality Stone had been on its own. Maybe it was worse if someone were directing it. But why these two teenagers, granted one was an Avenger, but there were others that would have been a more logical target.

"My aunt is going to kill me," Peter whispered.

"I'm so sorry, Peter."

"I guess after the dusting, everyone is a bit more prepared but…"

"It worked then," Natasha said softly, "I knew it would. Do you know… do you know how Clint was before you came here?"

"Hawkeye?" he asked, "Yeah, he's fine, his entire family came back safe."

She let out a long breath, a tension she had been carrying with her dissipating. She had known,  _known,_  he would be okay, that they would win, but to have it confirmed… that was a gift.

MJ came back into the room looking pale.

"Do you need anything?" Natasha asked at once, not bothering to ask if they were okay, clearly, they were not okay.

"I-" she stopped herself, "Can I take a nap?"

"Either guest bedroom, and I have something you can sleep in. Do either of you want anything to eat."

"No thanks," MJ said and Peter only shook his head.

"I have some of my son's clothes that should fit you, Peter, when you're ready to get some rest. We can pick up things of your own soon." She stood and headed for her bedroom, to get a comfortable T-shirt and a pair of shorts for MJ.

"You have a son?" Peter asked, finally looking up.

She nodded, "His name is Harry, he's fourteen."

He frowned, "I thought you said you were here for thirteen years. Were you pregnant during the war?"

She laughed, "No, Harry is adopted."

MJ said in a low voice that was less than thrilled, "I guess so are we."

* * *

Harry went on his morning run alone, Hedwig delivered Mom's message that something had come up.

It was on this morning that he ran past centaurs.

He stopped mid-stride when one halted in his path. He was pale, with stunning blue eyes, and long blonde hair.

"You are the slayer's son?"

It took him a moment to get what the centaur was referring to. "Oh, you mean of the spiders? Yeah, I'm Natasha Romanoff's son."

"And the Potter child, the Boy Who Lived?"

Harry let out a breath, "Yes, that too."

"Then I offer you this, the stars say you must die in order to live."

"Excuse me?" Harry asked, tensing and shifting to the balls of his feet.

"I am Fireniez, I mean you no harm Harry Romanoff, I am a friend, but there is more that you must learn about your first death."

"Then tell me plainly," Harry demanded.

"I cannot," the centaur said, "I can only see that you must- I must go. Stay safe, Mr. Romanoff."

And with that, the horseman galloped away into the trees.

As Harry was not fool enough to chase after the magical creature, he didn't linger, heading back to the castle feeling uneasy.

_You must die to live. There is more to know about your first death._

What did that mean?

He was so lost in thought that he didn't notice when a girl came up to him and tugged on his sleeve. He nearly jumped out of his skin when she squeaked, "Hi, I'm Ginny. Ginny Weasley."

Harry was too busy mentally kicking himself to connect immediately that this must have been Fred and George's little sister.

"Hello," he said, forcing his shoulders to relax. He really wasn't sure if he could do three more years here.

"I was… just," she swallowed, then a determined gleam shone in her eyes. She straightened her petite shoulders and asked, "I was wondering if you had a date yet to the Yule Ball?"

"No…" he said, thinking that the last thing he wanted to do was go to that stupid ball, but yeah, he supposed he should ask someone. It was less than a month away.

"Do you want to go with me?" the girl asked.

"No," he said absently, then winced when he realized how tactless that was, his mother had taught him better.

The girl's face began to break down, the skin around her brown eyes pinching, and she tried one last time in a small voice, "Why not?"

He softened his voice, "Because I don't know you. Best of luck though, you seem like a nice person." And he walked away before he could say anything stupid.

He hated school. He wasn't used to being around so many other kids for so long. And he wanted out of this castle, off these grounds, he was feeling claustrophobic, and as he walked to his next class, hundreds of eyes on him, that feeling only grew.

Harry was so ready for a vacation.

* * *

Natasha doubted that either teenager had slept much the previous night. She offered to take them out for breakfast, but both settled for cereal.

"So, what's going to happen to us?" MJ asked after finishing her bowl.

Peter was pouring himself seconds, but froze to stare up at Natasha, waiting for her answer.

He should have been too young to be an Avenger, not because he wasn't capable, but because he deserved a childhood.

"Well that would depend on what you want," Natasha said, "You're both underage though not far from eighteen. I would be most comfortable taking you in, we are from the same universe, Peter and I were a part of the same organization, I have enough to support you through college, healthcare and what have you, but you do have choices. Going out on your own, isn't one, this world can be deceptively similar until it isn't, you might find adjusting harder than you think."

"So if not with you, and not on our own," Peter said, "what other options do we have?"

"A few. I would have to get you both identification papers. But if you didn't want to stay with me I can find a boarding school for you either here in Europe or back in America, or even Canada if you like. We could find you a host family if you wanted to attend a public school, or if you truly want nothing to do with me, you can try your luck with the foster care system."

"And if we did want to stay with you?" MJ asked.

"Then we can see if there is a non-magical school close by, or I could homeschool you. Harry and I do travel on holidays, however."

"Magical schools?" MJ asked interestedly.

"Some humans can be witches and wizards here."

"Like Dr. Strange?" Peter asked.

"Similar, the magic is more innate and less, well less structured. It's more like the fairy tales than science."

"Do you know any?" MJ asked, "I mean, they must be dangerous."

"They can be. I turned out to be a witch when I came here, and my son is a wizard. Most of the people in this town have magic, actually."

MJ and Peter exchanged a look, and MJ asked, "Could either of us end up with magic?"

"It's possible, as far as I know. Though here, it seems to be either you are born with it or you're not."

"I want to stay with you," MJ stated, she looked unsettled but determined, "I don't want to deal with this BS on my own."

Peter took her hand, "You aren't alone."

Natasha smiled sadly at them both, "Well, the world is ours," she switched back to her Russian accent, "what would you like to do with the day?"

"You know, that's cool that you can switch accents but also kind of creepy. You sound like a villain," Peter remarked.

"I like it," MJ said, "it seems more honest."

Natasha tilted her head, and made her accent thicker, "Do you think I'm the villain?"

MJ squinted her eyes at Natasha and said slowly, "TBD."

Natasha laughed, they were strong kids, they would be alright.

* * *

"So she didn't give back the cloak?" Sirius asked, laughter in his eyes as he watched his friend look of the dark objects that had been 'retrieved' from the Malfoy Manor by Natasha.

"I'll get it back," James said, "she's supposed to stop by tonight."

"Can we all agree that Natasha Romanoff would have been sorted into Slytherin had she gone to Hogwarts?"

James, Lily, and even Remus, who hadn't met her in person yet, nodded their agreement.

"This one is the weirdest," Lily said, picking up a small journal, "Tom Marvelo Riddle's diary, but there is nothing written in it."

"Let me see it," Sirius said, holding his hand out for it.

The moment he touched it, he recognized it. Well, not it, but the feeling of it. He closed his eyes trying to remember where he had felt it before.

Remus asked, "What were you all even doing at the Malfoys? This wasn't a legal search if you involved Romanoff."

Ignoring the werewolf's question, James asked, "Doesn't Marvolo sound familiar?"

Sirius' eyes flashed open and he tossed the diary back on the table, "Marvolo Gaunt, last direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin." He jabbed a thumb at the diary, "And that thing has the same residence as Salazar's Locket I found when I was cleaning out my parents' place."

"Where is the locket now?" Lily asked.

" _The_  Salazar Slytherin's?" Remus asked.

"My vault."

"But what is it?"

Lily pulled it over to her, summoned a well of ink and quill and wrote,  _Hello, My name is Harry Potter._

"Why use Harry's name?" James asked.

"I don't think you should be writing in it," Remus cautioned.

"Because it always has something to do with Harry," she answered, ignoring Remus's words of wisdom.

The ink was absorbed and words appeared,  _Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?_

All four of them pushed in close to read the words and Lily wrote back,  _In the Come and Go Room at Hogwarts._

"In the what room?" Remus asked

Lily and James smiled at each other, and Sirius whined, "You found a secret room in Hogwarts without us?"

_Are you a student?_

_Yes,_ Lily wrote back,  _I'm a second year in Slytherin, but I fear they are going to close down the school, terrible things are happening._

"What terrible things?" James asked.

"If this is a relative of Slytherin," Lily said with a smirk, "What better bait than-"

 _What terrible things?_ The script echoed her husband.

Lily wrote back,  _The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. I was looking for something to help me. I'm afraid._

Sirius snorted, "It isn't going to fall for that. Even a talking book is going to know-"

" _Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned."_

"Lily," Remus said, "Are you sure you're not a seer?"

She stuck her tongue out at him, and he grinned, not having seen this side of her in a long time. She flipped her long red hair over her shoulder and said, "No, but unlike you lot, I grew up with something called logic."

More words showed up on the page, " _I can show you, if you like. You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him."_

"Show you how?" James asked.

"Maybe it will give us a stick figure drawing rendition of history," Sirius said excitedly.

More words appeared as Lily hesitated, " _Let me show you."_

She shrugged, "What's the worst that could happen?" She wrote the word,  _okay._

And then the diary ate her.

"Lily!" the Marauders shouted.

Minutes passed, and when Lily was sprewed back onto the apartment floor in a rustle of pages, James was in complete panic mode.

He nearly squeezed the life out of her. She patted his back, trying to hug him back and breathe at the same time, "I'm fine, I'm fine."

He let go of her, took the diary, and threw it against the opposite wall.

Lily leaned back against the island table looking out into the living room, Remus knelt by her side checking her over.

"What the hell happened?" Sirius asked as James relearned how to breathe.

"We need to talk to Hagrid," Lily said.

"How do you feel?" Remus asked.

She took in some steadying breaths and said honestly, "Drained, weak. It isn't just a contained memory, like a pensive, it's something else."

"Drained," James growled, "like it's a parasite."

Lily rubbed at her eyes, "We need to do some more research."

"Why Hagrid?" Remus asked.

"Because according to the diary," she said, "Hagrid was the one to open the Chamber of Secrets."

They all looked at each other, and Sirius said, "Alright, Hagrid will have a story to tell us, but I'm stating it now, that book is evil."

No one disagreed.

* * *

Natasha took both teens clothes shopping as they pretended they hadn't just lost everything they had ever known.

To their credit, they were doing rather well.

Until some Londoner tried pulling a knife on MJ.

Before Natasha could break the street rodent, MJ threw out her hand and the man went flying backwards. Peter caught him and punched the man hard enough that he collapsed on the ground.

MJ was staring down at her hand in amazement. "I'm a witch," she murmured in awe.

Natasha's mind was spinning, "Change of plans, we are going to make a trip down to Magical London."

"As opposed to magically teleporting here?" Peter asked.

Natasha directed them through the streets.

And as they crossed into the otherworld both became as young children, staring in wonderment at the magic and the oddities around them. Diagon Alley was much more impressive than Hogsmeade.

"MJ, I hate to push you into this, but the magic of this world needs to be learned if you have it. Even I didn't realize what it was capable of until this year," four weeks ago to be precise, "and in order to get you enrolled I think you will have to go to the school tonight."

"Why tonight?" Peter asked.

Natasha winced, "Because I may have made an enemy out of the Headmaster. The paper gets published tomorrow morning."

Peter gave her a look, "And why make the Headmaster of a school, I'm assuming, your son attends, your enemy?"

"Because he likely did things that put my son in unnecessary danger."

"Likely?"

Natasha sighed, "I was trying to make friends, besides the Headmaster tried invading my mind. That alone was enough to get him on my list."

"Where are we going?" MJ asked.

"To get you a wand."

"Cool."

oOo

When they entered Olivander looked up and scowled at them. "Ms. Romanoff, who do you have with you?"

"These are my good friends' children. And we find ourselves in need of a wand."

"Hmm," the man -if he was a man, hummed, staring at MJ as if he could see through her. Then his eyes flicked to Peter who took an involuntary step back.

"You're a muggle."

"What's with that word?" MJ asked, "This is Peter Parker, and I'm Michelle Jones."

Ollivander's lips twitched, "An American, interesting. A moment, I have a few… hmm, where did they go?" He disappeared behind a stack of shelves.

He came out with a wand box, and Natasha stood behind MJ, prepared to catch her if the wand objected.

The wand didn't object, in fact, it lit up like a sparklier, "Ceder, Phoenix feather, thirteen inches, hmmm… I doubted I ever find a match for this one, but here you are, my dear. 'My father, Gervaise Ollivander, used always to say, 'you will never fool the cedar carrier.' And phoenix feathers are known for their range of magic. Remember, Ms. Jones, this wand chose you."

"Thanks," she answered, staring down at the wand as if it would burst into flame.

Natasha felt a similar wariness.

"So, there's no way I would be a witch too, huh?" Peter asked, seeming more curious than jealous.

Olivander wrapped a finger on Peter's forehead, "Sorry my lad, you are not a wizard, you are an odd one though, if that is any comfort."

Peter frowned at MJ who was giving him a mockingly sympathetic look.

"Ms. Romanoff, though you have Ms. Black's wand, perhaps there would be another here that may suit you?"

Natasha narrowed her eyes at him, but she had never turned down an extra weapon and she wasn't about to start now, "I can keep both?"

"Certainly, the wand you carry, you won and its loyalties belong to you alone. But if you would allow me to find another, you may find you can reach new understandings with your own magic."

"Why help me? I didn't think you liked me."

Olivander raised his chin, "Your son was the first person to  _ever_  enter my shop and not find a match. It stung my pride, but I think with the way his magic developed wands were simply not a viable option."

"Alright, if you can find me a match..." The wandmaker was already zipping through the shop.

He came back with a stack of boxes, that Natasha had the suspicion he had been compiling in the hopes that she would come back. She dutifully tried each one he handed her, he often snatched them back before her fingers could grasp them. But none of them threw her back as they had to Harry.

He sighed, and the last wand he gave her, sent a power singing threw her as if something had resonated with her soul.

The old man's expression was a mix of satisfaction and that of a man wondering if he had just made a monumental mistake. "Cherry wood," he said, "highly prized in Japan, known for being quite lethal. Dragon heartstring core, of a Peruvian Vipertooth that went rogue in a muggle city. They are the smallest of the dragon breeds, but poisonous and deadly. It is said that cherry wand paired with a dragon heartstring ought never to be teamed with a wizard without exceptional self-control and strength of mind."

Natasha smiled, feeling as if she had just made a new friend, she said, "I'll take them both, and do you sell wand wrist sheaths?"

Olivander seemed to conclude that he had done a very ill thing indeed, as he morosely rang them up.

Next, they went to the bookstore, where Natasha simply bought every Hogwarts required book, unsure of what grade they would put MJ into.

As they were leaving the store, MJ asked, "You sure you can pay for all this?"

"My dear, I'm from the future too, and have been here for over a decade. Let's just say I've made some rather advantageous investments."

She smirked, "Guess there are some bonuses to chaos."

"The world will surprise you."

Both teenagers looked distant, how ever surprising this world might be, they had still lost everything, their hands found each other. They had lost everything  _except_  each other.

* * *

Harry had finally discovered who had been stealing Luna's shoes. Unfortunately, he had yet to find a way into the girls' dormitories, but that was only a matter of time.

Now what he was going to do to them, that was the question.

He was going to have to get creative, because if he had to act again... things wouldn't go well for them.

Harry was pretty sick of this school. Yes, the magic was fun, yes, he loved the library, he oddly didn't even mind his parents, too much. But he didn't like being in school, he didn't like sleeping in the dormitories, or having to sneak out to see his mom and to work out. He didn't like being  _constantly_  surrounded by people.

His skin felt itchy, he had never had to pretend to be social this long, and he despised being watched all the time. This morning with the twins had been his first real slip, and he probably hadn't handled that girl asking him out correctly either.

He couldn't imagine three more years of this.

Hedwig tapped against one of the dormitory's windows.

"Hi, beautiful," Harry said to the snowy owl.

She hooted approvingly, accepting pets before giving him the message.

_There is someone I need you to meet. Back entrance._

"You can go hunting, Hedwig, or get some rest, thank you."

She rubbed her cheek against his and flew off.

Harry jogged to the back entrance, making it there just as they were approaching. Next to Mom was a tall girl Harry didn't recognize.

"Harry, this Michelle Jones, MJ, this is my son Harry Romanoff."

He held out his hand, "Nice to meet you."

She shook his hand with a firm grip, she looked tired. "I'm Spider-Man's friend."

He blinked, "Peter Parker? You're from Mom's world?"

She smiled weakly at him, "Yep."

"When did you get here, and how?"

"Yesterday and an infinity stone. Peter is here too, but he doesn't have magic."

"Just you two?"

She nodded.

Harry looked at Mom with raised brows, "If you just got here, why are you coming to Hogwarts? I mean witch, or no, surely you want some time to adjust, right?"

MJ looked at her too, and Mom sighed, "I'm sorry, you don't even have to stay the night, tomorrow is Saturday, we just need to get you enrolled."

"Why?" Harry asked.

"I may have acted against Dumbledore in such a way that there are going to be problems when the morning paper is released."

" _Mom._ "

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Harry looked at MJ and asked, "You okay with this?"

She shrugged, "At this point, the distraction is kind of nice."

They started walking and Harry let the silence stand as MJ took in the castle.

By the time they got to the Headmaster's office, she looked a little more interested in being here. Mom started guessing magical candies and on her fifth try, the gargoyles leapt aside.

Dumbledore greeted them warmly, not the least surprised to see them. "Ms. Romanoff, Mr. Romanoff, and who have you brought with you?"

MJ spoke for herself, "Michelle Jones, my family passed away and Natasha took me in."

True sympathy shown on the old man's face, "I'm sorry to hear that Ms. Jones. Which school are you transferring from, Ilvermorny?"

MJ lied so smoothly that if Harry hadn't known she was an alternative universe he would never have guessed, "I kept my magic secret from my parents, but Natasha seems to think a magical education is important."

"Indeed, suppressed magic can be quite dangerous, I'm surprised no one from Ilvermorny tried to convince you and your parents of its necessity."

MJ looked the old man straight in his baby blues, and shrugged nonchalantly. Without words saying clearly,  _wasn't my job to keep track of other people's BS._

Harry had to work hard not to smile.

"Hmm," the old man said, "how old are you?"

"Sixteen."

Dumbledore looked at Harry, and after a moment asked, "You have no magical training, Ms. Jones?"

"Nope."

He looked back at her with a kind smile, "You would not be able to keep up with the sixth years and it is a bit late in the year to start studying for your OWLs. However, like Mr. Romanoff, even without proper training, your magic is probably too developed to be placed in with the early years. I think the fourth year will be best, even if you struggle. I also believe it would be good if you stuck to the same schedule as Mr. Romanoff, you could help one another. That might mean you are separated from your housemates if you're not sorted into Ravenclaw, but it would be best both for you as well as the professors."

"That's fine, I've been held back before."

"Would she be able to live with me," Natasha asked, "and commute to classes?"

Dumbledore pursed his lips, "That would be highly unusual, but until winter break, I can make an exception. However, I would like you to be sorted in front of the other students, dinner will soon be served."

"Sure, whatever," MJ said, and Harry wondered if Dumbledore could see the tension in her shoulders.

* * *

MJ didn't rightly have words for what she was feeling. But she did think she was grateful for this distraction.

She wouldn't have traded her life for magic and to go to a magical school, but it was interesting.

The castle was huge, but there weren't that many students, not compared to the school she and Peter went to.

It would be odd not to be going to school with Peter.

Burying her emotions she went to the front of the hall, with the Headmaster who was holding a ragged old hat. Harry sat down at one of the four parallel tables. She guessed by the different colours of ties that there were four houses.

"I apologize for the delay of dinner tonight," the Headmaster greeted the room, all talking ceased. "We have yet another addition to our school, Ms. Michelle Jones."

She sat down on the stool that the Headmaster magickified into existence, and he put the old hat on her head.

She was worried about all the places this hat could have been when it began to talk in her head.

 _Ah, my dear, I am so sorry for your loss,_  the talking hat thought in her head.

Perhaps it was a thinking hat, not a talking one?

She thought back,  _thanks. Can you read my mind or do I need to talk out loud?_

_I can hear you, very new to magic I see, this is quite odd, quite wonderful. The change you will bring-_

_I'm no leader._

_Perhaps, perhaps not. You're quite clever, quite intelligent, not one to follow the crowd… hmm… Hufflepuff might be good, though I am not sure they would appreciate your humour._

_Not a lot of people do._

_Hmmm, hmmm. Gryffindor is out of the question, they can be quite overwhelming, Ravenclaw, maybe, but, well, I think you have it in you to be someone more, something great._

She shrugged,  _A doubt a house sorting would change that._

_You would be surprised._

_Why are you hesitating so much, isn't choosing your job?_

_It is my job, and I know exactly where you belong, but I fear you won't thank me for it. Ravenclaw just won't do, Slytherin will help you to greatness, and likely, you shall help Slytherin rise to greatness as well._

_Great, Slytherin it is then. Can I go now?_

_Remember, Merlin was a Slytherin._

_Wait, Merlin, like Arthur and the Stone, is real?_

_You'll be fine._

"Why are you hesitating?" she asked again, her voice cutting through the silence.

The hat announced to the room, "SLYTHERIN!"

It was a talking hat after all.

Dumbledore raised the hat off her and gave her a wary look. He didn't have to tell her what table was hers, it was the green tied people clapping and roaring the loudest.

She sat down where a space was made for her. There were a few students who didn't look like they were from this school at all, the nearest people introduced themselves as Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, and Viktor Krum.

Krum didn't sound British, Scottish, or Irish at all.

A blonde boy butted into their bland introductions, "Is your family magical?"

"No," she said, "just me."

He sneered at her, "Isn't that perfect, the first mudblood in Slytherin in over a decade."

"What did you just call me?" she asked, something like fury rising in her gut. She wasn't even sure she was angry at him. She had grown up in New York, she had certainly been called worse, but this was not the week she wanted to deal with it.

Viktor Krum leaned toward the blonde and said in a voice so low and menacing it warmed her heart, "Sit. Down."

She was disappointed when she learned that Viktor wouldn't be in any of her classes.

* * *

"How was it?" Natasha asked as they walked back to Hogsmeade.

"Fine."

"If there is anything I can do for you, just ask. You don't even have to go to Hogwarts, I just wanted to ensure that you would have the option if you wanted it."

"I do want it. I want to go home more, but I get that isn't something we can control. So learning magic in the meantime… it beats doing statistics."

"Is there anything you want to do this weekend?"

"Sleep?" MJ mused, "not think…"

Natasha slowly put an arm around her shoulders, and the girl leaned into the support, "You're not alone."

oOo

"I'll be back in forty minutes, you two alright?"

"No promises," MJ said from the sofa where she had her legs hanging over the back, "if the walls start melting, I'm running away."

"We're fine," Peter said, poking a screwdriver into MJ's parished phone.

"Forty minutes or less," Natasha said, before popping away.

"You're late," Sirius greeted with a smile.

She smiled languidly back, "A witch is never late, she arrives precisely when she means to."

Lily laughed, it was the first time Natasha had heard a real laugh from the other woman, it was a nice sound. "Someone else who's read Tolkien."

Natasha blinked, there was a soul that had existed in both worlds, though now that she really thought about it, more than a few key historical figures had been in both histories. Perhaps it was possible that Peter and MJ had family here.

"You sold all the fun books," James complained.

"No I didn't, they are in storage."

"Find anything interesting?" Natasha asked.

Lily and James nodded, and he said, "We have some people we need to go talk to and some research to do about parasitical objects."

"One of them was a parasite?"

They all pointed to the floor where the unnerving journal she had found in a hidey hold in the manor.

"You're telling me it's alive?" Natasha asked.

"Alive and evil," Sirius sang.

Natasha pulled her new Cherry wand that she had yet to use, just as a sandy haired man came out of one of the bathrooms, assuming he was supposed to be there as no one jumped at seeing him, she kept her focus on the diary.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Green light, and then the thing shrieked. Black smoke emitted from the diary wailing, before disappearing into nothing.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Lily exclaimed.

"Why!?" James all but yelled.

Sirius began to laugh and the new guy stared at her horrified.

"You said it was evil and alive, now it's dead and not a problem, abracadabra," she concluded. Putting her free hand on her hip, she asked the sandy haired man, "Who the hell are you?"

"Natasha," James said a bit exasperated, "this is our friend, Remus Lupin, Remus, this is Natasha Romanoff."

The man said nothing, just continued to stare at her, mouth parted a bit.

"Is that all you found out?" she asked, moving on.

"A few leads, but yes, basically," James lied.

She would get the details out of them later, "Wonderful, now if you'll excuse me, I have places to be."

"Wait," Lily said, "Tomorrow, after lunch, we are still on to tutor Harry, yes?"

"Yes," she said, "Now, I need to be going."

"Why?" James asked, "You don't have a job."

She smiled sweetly at him, batting her eyes, "Not officially."

Then popped away, she really did love teleporting.

* * *

AN: Thoughts, comments, reactions, or world carrying tortoises?


	12. The Ethics of Stealing

AN: I had tea with my demons, and they threw it back in my face. I don't know if I need to brew different tea leaves, or if it was a lesson in not giving your demons boiling hot water. Perhaps next time I should try iced tea…

* * *

WHY SPIDER-MAN: Because I wanted more Natasha (more than her reading in the library rafters anyway) and more Potterverse/MCU mesh. And yes, I have a plot, and no, I'm not going to warn you when the proverbial bombs go off.

* * *

Chapter 12 - The Ethics of Stealing

Natasha woke Peter with a pillow to his face.

Peter jolted out of bed, he tumbled to the ground, and was up on his feet in a fighting stance a moment later.

Natasha pointed a finger gun at him, and said, "Bang, bang."

He frowned at her, then rubbed his eyes, "Do you always wake your guests up like that?"

"I was testing your spidey senses. In this scenario, you would be dead, so it appears I have things to teach you."

He pulled a shirt off from the ground, "So your version of homeschooling is ninja training?"

"I read your background report, Peter. You don't need to learn algebra, and history you'll have to pick up along the way. No, what you need is a lab, tools to tinker with, and a sketchbook. You are likely the most tech-savvy person in this universe, it would be foolish not to take advantage of that."

He pulled on a pair of pants over his boxers, "You're just going to let me do whatever I want for the next two years?"

"Creatively, scientifically, and mechanically, yes, though we will be discussing the ethics and possible dangers of any and all of your inventions. I'm sure Tony, or the news, informed you of the repercussions are of doing 'whatever you want'."

"Okay, cool, and thanks for not forcing me to go to a new school, I don't know if I could-" he cut himself off and Natasha knew what he was going to say.

He didn't know if he could start over and pretend to be normal. Didn't know if he could handle being with new people, especially in a foreign country, time, and universe.

"But what does any of this have to do with waking me up before dawn? It's Saturday, surely I can sleep in on the weekends?"

"Of course," she said with a smile, "You can go back to bed if you want, but Harry and I train each morning, and I thought as an Avenger, you might like to join us."

His frown fading, he said, "Give me two minutes to use the bathroom and brush my teeth."

She nodded, but he had already bolted out of the room

Natasha sighed in relief, she had hoped that Peter would be somewhat like Harry, and that Peter's background as an Avenger would press the need in him to do something. Natasha knew a lot about soldiers, spies, and athletes. Typically, when you dumped a world-altering change on them, they wanted to act, to move their bodies in place of what their mind and words maybe weren't ready to process.

MJ was going to be harder, Natasha had a little experience with Clint's daughter Lila, but Lila was younger than MJ. Natasha was in over her head in with a teenage daughter, but she would do her best and most importantly, she would care.

And giving a shit was half the battle with being a guardian.

Natasha left a note on both the fridge and coffee table, Peter and I went for a run, will be back at 8 am.

oOo

Peter was uncharacteristically quiet on their jog over to the castle, although he seemed to snap out of it when the met Harry at the perimeter.

Harry's green eyes were and he held out his hand before Peter could so much voice a hello.

"You're Peter Parker, Spider-Man. It's really cool to meet you, sorry about your universe displacement though," Harry said with about as much excitement as Natasha was expecting. Spider-Man was one bedtime story she had to repeat many a night, and she had been able to give too many details because meeting a person and knowing their file wasn't the same thing as knowing a person.

Peter smiled warmly, and shook her son's hand, "It's cool to meet you too. You're Black Widow's son. No one else in the Avengers was my age, I was by the far the youngest."

"That's not true," Natasha said with a grin, "Vision was three years old, and Groot wasn't ten yet."

Peter rolled his eyes, "Yeah but Vision isn't a kid, he's… not human, he's not even an alien, he's just other. And Groot is a tree."

Harry laughed, "You can call me Harry, and I'm two years younger than you if it makes you feel better."

Peter grinned, and before they could get going Natasha said, "We can talk as we jog, boys, let's go the day isn't getting any younger."

"Technically," Peter quipped, "The day hasn't really started seeing as the sun isn't up yet."

Harry let out a surprised laugh.

Great, Natasha thought, now I have two smart asses. She smiled fondly and said, "We could always start earlier, fear of darkness is something we really should help you work through."

Peter grinned and he set off at a steady pace, Harry all but skipping after him.

He was meeting one of his heroes in the flesh and blood after all.

"So," Peter began, "who's your favourite Avenger?"

"You mean aside from my mom? Clint Barton, obviously."

"Obviously?" Peter exclaimed, "How is Hawkeye anyone's obvious choice?"

Harry smirked at him, "Because he's literally the only Avenger without superpowers or who doesn't hide behind a suit."

"Said the wizard."

Harry smile had an edge of venom to it, "I don't need my magic to kick butt, and neither does Clint. He's able to keep up with everyone and take out just as many foes, his aim is just that good."

Peter made a face but good naturedly ceded the point, "I guess that's true. Heck, neither does Nick Fury and he runs the Avengers. I mean, sort of runs, Tony did most of the work after everything."

"Tony does not do most of the work," Natasha interceded, "I won't say he wasn't a major contributor in those years but the Avengers existed before him, and despite what Fury would like people to believe, SHIELD existed long before him as well."

"Yeah, but without Tony everyone would be dead," Peter argued.

"It's a team, Peter, without the rest, yourself included, Tony would have died a thousand times over."

Something crossed his face but Harry asked, "So, is Iron Man your favourite, then? You know, aside from yourself."

Peter's expression went back to cheerful but Natasha noted the shadows in his eyes, which was only to be expected, he might never see Stark again, might never see home again.

"I am so not my favourite," he said, "Top ten, definitely, but… Tony is always going to be my favourite Avenger."

"My heart is broken," Natasha said, putting the back of her hand to her forehead in a dramatic gesture.

Peter laughed as Harry snorted.

"You're definitely the most beautiful," Peter said to assuage her, then immediately turned beat red.

Harry laughed, then punched the other boy's shoulder, "Come on, man, that's my mom."

Natasha flipped her hair, "He's only speaking truth, son, don't intercede on people giving me compliments."

"Who's your second favourite?" Harry asked.

"Captain American," he answered without missing a beat, though he wouldn't look at Natasha when he spoke.

"Did you really steal his shield?"

Peter smiled proudly, "I did."

"So awesome, his expression must have been priceless."

"It was a good moment. I also took out Ant-Man that day, he was giant and he went down like one of those walkers from the Empire Strikes back." Peter frowned, "You do have those movies in this universe right?"

Harry grinned, "Yep, we rented them on VCR."

"You're so old," Peter teased.

Harry stuck his tongue out, "Just wait, even as time goes on you're still going to have problems, most electronics break down around us. We've had pretty good success with TV's but other stuff goes haywire."

"Yeah, I noticed, why is that exactly?"

"We're not completely sure," Natasha said, "And this magic isn't like the magic I encountered in our universe. It doesn't follow any laws but its own and even that isn't a sure thing."

"Strange…" Peter said, and she could see the gears turning as the sun rose, "So you guys' magic doesn't work at all like wizards like Dr. Strange then?"

"No," Natasha answered, "from what I understood, Strange's magic was more a manipulation of energy, our magic is more innate."

"Is MJ going to have a hard time with it?"

"She might, she may not. Harry was born with it, and I wasn't, yet I had an easier time with it. Though that might have been because I am an adult and some control is much like another."

"It's alright, Peter, MJ will have me," Harry offered.

What Natasha was appreciating as Peter's ever ready smile brightened his face, "I don't even know you, but that does make me feel better. You're like an honorary Avenger."

Harry's answering smile warmed Natasha. Part of her mandate that they settle for three years was to get him to open up to other people, let them in. But even after a few weeks, he hadn't made much progress. Not with his classmates or his parents.

But Peter and MJ came from her world, and in some ways, they were closer to the reality that Harry had grown up trying to understand. He was probably one of the most travelled, worldly teenagers on the planet, but their bond was prinicple.

And as much as Natasha loved her son, she knew that in order for Harry to grow into a happy, healthy adult, she needed to push him out of the nest. Watching him and Peter jogging together, talk between them flowing easily, she thought he might leap out of the nest on his own.

It was both a good thing and a notion that scared her down to her core. Ironic, seeing as she's the one who had been teaching him to fly. Clint hadn't warned her about this part of parenting.

oOo

Natasha and Peter made it back to her apartment as MJ was exiting her room. She blinked at them, her bed head a mass around her face, her shoulders slumped.

"Morning," she said, and as both Natasha and Peter greeted her, MJ had already turned into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. The snick of the lock effectively cutting them both off.

"You can use the master bathroom, I'll wait," Natasha said.

And looking as worried as she felt for MJ, Peter disappeared into her room, leaving Natasha standing alone in the hallway, faced with whole infinity of new responsibilities.

After Harry, she had sort of wanted more children, she was regretting that wish and bargaining with whatever powers had dumped this on her that she had at no point asked for two more teenagers.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore was many things, but surprised wasn't often one that came to mind.

Until lately.

Of course, Albus wasn't exactly surprised. No. He was absolutely furious.

The headline of the Daily Prophet read thus: POTTERS AND MALFOY CALL FOR ALBUS DUMBLEDORE TO STEP DOWN AS HEADMASTER AT HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY!

Not only was this an unprecedented request, but to have the Potters,  _the Potters,_  ask for his dismissal was every shade of unacceptable.

The Potters were his, and this betrayal… it could not be forgiven. And their reasoning:

-Mr. Lucius Malfoy and his wife Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy have long made their views about Headmaster Dumbledore as an open disapproval, and this, of course, is not the first time Mr. Malfoy has requested his dismissal.

-However, any case against the widely popular, Greatest Wizard of Our Age, Mr. Albus Dumbledore has been tossed out before reaching serious scrutiny. As Headmaster and Professor, Mr. Dumbledore is loved by the majority of his students, and except for the squib, Argus Filch, is adored by his staff. Hogwarts has been kept in complete safety under Headmaster Dumbledore's tenure. Most notable in the war against He Who Must Not Be Named, the Hogwarts' barriers were never breached and no evil was brought in from the outside. This was a blessing for those parents who feared the sanctuaries of their homes.

-But this week, the Headmaster may be facing the dawn of his retirement. As the Aurors Mr. James Potter, Mrs. Lily Potter, and Mr. Sirius Black have all come out to speak against the current administration at Hogwarts. Ranked as listed, these three Aurors are known as the most ruthless, cleverest, and just plain powerful Aurors to serve the Ministry of Magic in the last two hundred years. Only criminals known to leave the country have ever escaped them, their case closer rates the highest to date. And most peculiarly to this report, they are known to be close associates, if not friends, of Mr. Dumbledore.

-So the question everyone is asking: why have the Potters taken such a public stand against the Headmaster? Why have the Potters aligned themselves with the Malfoys of whom no cordial relations have ever been witnessed?

-Simply, the Boy Who Lived's return to the Wizarding World.

-Harry Potter (AKA Harry Romanoff) was maliciously entered into the Triwizard Tournament. The Potters have been rightly outraged at the danger their long lost son faces, being that he is three years younger than the other champions as well as lacking a formal magical education. While the Boy Who Lived kept his title among the breathing, performing extraordinary athletics in retrieving his egg from a Hungarian Horntail, he won without casting a spell. If the boy continues competing without relying on magic, the next two tasks may prove fatal.

-Mr. and Mrs. Potter have, rightly, expressed extreme worry for their son, as well as Headmaster Dumbledore's apparent lack of investigation, or even desire to investigate the circumstances of Mr. Romanoff's entrance into the tournament.

-Additionally, into the Headmaster's lack of discipline of his staff. The ex-Auror, Alastor Moody (AKA Madeye Moody), now Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, used in his class undo magical force against Mr. Romanoff. The spell was not disclosed but the incident concluded with Mr. Romanoff striking back with enough force to knock the professor off his feet. Mr. Romanoff was not punished as it was seen as an adequate response of self defense. However, the Potters feel that Madeye should have been put under review and faced some sort of consequence for his uncalled for extremes against a new student, adding to their belief that Mr. Dumbledore be relieved of his position.

-What has us at the Daily Prophet abuzz, as well as those in the Ministry in the loop, is not just that the Potters have come against Mr. Dumbledore who they were allies with, nor just that they are publicly questioning the ex-Auror who trained them, but that they have done so with and supported by the Malfoys. Historically, these two families have never gotten along, and their agreement alone puts Headmaster Dumbledore in deep water.

-What will come of this request for the Headmaster's retirement is unclear. The public backlash though is  _prophesied_  to be interesting.

-Andy Smudgley, Daily Prophet, December 8th, 1994

Albus wanted to burst into flame, even he was going to have a hard time overcoming this. Voldemort's death had not ceased fire, the years after hadn't been as dark as wartime, but it couldn't be called a time of peace. But the Potters and Black had risen from the ashes of their broken hearts and enforced the law with a brutality that was frightening.

They had never killed anyone, hadn't even permanently injured anyone, but thanks to them, every Death Eater who remained in the country was unearthed. There investigation skills, their intuition as defining as their excellence in magic. It was the courts who let people slip or the international laws that ever slowed them down.

The Potters were basically the ones responsible for making Knockturn Alley habitable. No, it was still wasn't a good area, it remained a poor magical neighbourhood, but a child could walk down the street at night with reasonable safety. The Potters had cut the magical black market in the UK off at the knees. They were also the ones responsible for increasing rights, or at least treating magical creatures with civility while still enforcing public safety. The Potters, in many regards, were the Auror's Aurors. They were the people sought out if there was a real problem or if someone needed a sensitive type of help.

If it wasn't for their obsession with finding their son in their spare time, they would have outranked Amelia Bones and Kingsley Shacklebolt. Both of whom were powerful in their own right, and arguably better at politics. But the Potters, and even Black, were as the muggles might say, the better cops.

Never in a million years would Albus have predicted the Potters would turn on him.

But so be it, if the Potters wanted a fight, he would give them one.

No matter their track record, they had thrown in with the Malfoys, and in his assertation, that made them no better than Death Eaters.

* * *

After reading the paper, Harry understood why Mom had rushed trying to get MJ admitted. No way was Dumbledore going to be giving them any more favours in the future.

Looking up at the table head table he wasn't the least surprised to see his seat absent. Though he noticed that both Professors Snape and McGonagall looked a bit green around the edges, the rest of the professors looked either confused or angry.

Guess which emotion Madeye had landed on?

"Did you know this was coming?" Hermione asked.

"Not really," Harry said, "But my mom was definitely involved, she wouldn't have taken the headmaster's inaction mutely. Though, unlike my birth parents, she probably wouldn't have done something so public."

Padma shook her head, "Harry, this is the first time your bio-parents have done something public. They have refused every reward ever offered to them or opportunity to give public speeches. The Potters and Black are famous in the wizarding world for being badass Aurors. Sometimes, when magical people say to their kids, don't do anything bad or else, they say or else the Potters will catch you. Not Aurors, the Potters."

Neville came up behind them, Harry not surprised because he had caught the shadow in the reflection of his glasses, "My dad says they make the rest of them look lazy. To say the Potters are workaholics is probably the century's largest understatement. My mom still doesn't figure how they had time to look for you and do their jobs."

"Oh that's simple," Padma said reasonably, "they don't sleep."

"So, Harry," Neville redirected, "Did you know this was going to happen?"

"Are people going to be asking me that all day?"

Everyone within hearing distance answered, "Yes."

Padma added cheerfully, "More like until the end of the term."

Harry sighed.

"You just don't understand, Harry," Neville consoled, "This is a huge deal. The Malfoys and the Potters have never gotten along while the Potters and the Albus Dumbledore always have."

One of the older Slytherins who had been eavesdropping leaned across the divide between their tables to say, "They've broken the rules, Romanoff, the very foundation of our times. Slytherins and Gryffindors don't get along, ex-Death Eaters and Aurors don't see eye to eye, and Gryfindor Aurors don't question the rainbow shitting Dumbledore."

"Snape and Mrs. Potter get along," Neville offered.

The brown eyed Slytherin rolled his eyes, "Yeah, but Snape belongs to the Headmaster. And he isn't a pureblood."

Harry sighed again, "I hate politics."

The brown haired boy smiled at him, "Good luck with that."

Fleur who hadn't much to add, patted him on the back.

* * *

"It's like being in a movie," Peter said as looked around the store with fascination at the out of date mundane stores.

"Or a book," MJ said, looking around within an impassive expression.

Natasha hadn't yet figured the girl out, but she was happy to see how perceptive she was in every environment.

In some regards, that was almost more important than her physical strength given she was now a witch.

They were currently pursuing a store that sold chemistry sets and science equipment.

Peter kept asking for almost every single item if it was okay for him to add it to their cart with a politeness and hesitation that was enduring.

"So, are you like a super spy in this universe?" MJ asked as Peter began comparing scales. They had to go to a completely different section for scales that weren't electronic.

"I will always be who and what I am, but no, I'm not on any sort of official or active duty."

MJ nodded, her eyes doing a quick survey of the aisle they were in, they were practically alone in the store. Then she asked, "What about in the magical world? Is there, well, is there like threats? Like huge wars and stuff? Or political dangers?"

Clever girl. "Yes and no. They have their own governments, and certainly, there are political tensions. But they aren't currently at war."

"Currently," MJ repeated dryly, she looked out into the room lost in thought.

Peter came back to the oversized cart with another box, "Okay, I think that is the last of it."

"Liar," both MJ and Natasha said.

He frowned at them, "I have more than enough to make do."

"Perhaps, but Peter, I own more phone, internet, software, and hardware shares then nearly anyone on the planet. I can afford to buy this entire store if you wanted. And I would rather not have to make too many trips."

Peter put the box in the cart, said with gratitude, "Thank you," and darted off again.

"How did you get the money to invest in the first place?" MJ asked.

Natasha smiled sweetly, "I wasn't always a US employee."

MJ glared at her sternly, but her lips curved around the edges.

oOo

MJ's mood drastically improved once they went to the bookstore after shrieking Peter's two carts and one trolley of raw materials from the hardware store and science supply store.

As Natasha shadowed Peter as he seemed less averse to company here then MJ.

"MJ reads a lot."

"It's a good hobby."

"I really can't thank you enough, I-"

Natasha waved it away, "It's alright, Peter, I'm happy to have you both. Don't feel indebted to me."

He frowned, "But-"

She looked at him, "I had people help me, I would rather you pass on the favour to someone in the future than ever try to pay me back."

He nodded.

"I'm sorry you lost you universe."

He nodded again, opened his mouth, then shut it, then said softly, "What am I going to tell my Aunt May?"

Natasha didn't point out that he might never get the chance to tell her anything, instead, she said, "That you love her."

* * *

Lily was nervous walking into Hogwarts.

"Relax," James said, "Albus isn't going to jump out at us around a corner, and he can't do anything to us without hurting his case against us."

"But what of Harry disapproves?"

"Breathe, Lils, I don't think there was any love lost between Harry and the headmaster."

She tried to settle herself, knowing that it would only make things worse for Harry if she came into their study session stressed out.

Because of course, things were tense enough between them. Harry was waiting for them in the classroom they used last time, his potions supplies set up already.

"Hi, Harry," they said in unison.

Harry smiled at them tightly, "Hi."

Her chest was tight and she tried to shrug it off as she approached the table, "Do you have a potion you wanted to try."

He nodded, "We did this one in class, but I wasn't able to follow everything going on."

"We can do that. How was your week?" she asked.

He shrugged non-committedly and looked at her patiently.

He didn't answer in words nor ask how her week was in return. She thought it was less because he being impolite but because he was trying to make boundaries between them.

"Where is Natasha?" James asked.

"Busy," Harry answered, "But she will be by later."

"What does she do exactly?" Lily asked, a bit of bitterness creeping into her voice.

He smirked at her, "This and that."

Lily fought to keep a scowl off her face.

"Do either of you mind if I stay then? I'm not horrible at potions."

"He's being modest," Lily informed Harry.

James grinned, "No, Lily is, if she is comparing out skills."

"You can stay," Harry said, sounding a bit relieved.

It hurt that he didn't want to be alone with her, but she pushed that feeling aside. Harry didn't owe them anything, she wasn't going to be so emotionally needy that he pushed her further away.

"What's your favourite potion?" Harry asked his father.

"Healing potions, I suppose, Sirius and I get pretty banged up most of the time. I don't know what I would do without magical healing."

Harry turned to her and repeated the question."

"Poly-Juice, I don't enjoy drinking it, but undercover work is fun. And I like catching people off guard. Gender differences mean less here, but it still gets to a lot of wizards if the 'little red head' was the one to take them down."

He stared at her, almost crossly.

"What?" she asked.

He shook his head, "I just… you are going to get along with my mom really well once you get over yourself."

James jumped in with, "So what potion are we working on today?"

Lily was momentarily stunned. She didn't know if she was more hurt that her son thought she was self absorbed or more offended that he had compared to her to the woman who had ruined her life.

Which she realized in a sort of distant way, more or less proved his point. Which made her feel infinitely shitty about herself.

James started pointing out which ingredients to Harry would need, and came close enough to put a warm hand on her lower back, she leaned in to the support, needing that support more than she wanted.

Needed it more than her  _self absorbed_  self wanted to admit.

* * *

A part of James wanted to be angry with Harry. It was one thing to be uncertain around them, to do heart attack endorsing stunts, but quite another to be rude to his birth mother.

But then, James understood that if it was up to Harry, there would not be any time together at all. It was they who wanted him to be here and Natasha who had enforced it. Because when it came down to it, neither James nor Lily had any say in Harry's life. Harry didn't respect them, Harry didn't want to know them, or spend time with them, it was the woman who raised him, who understood that it was important that he know his family.

And Lily had yet to come to terms with that, and even in her silence, she was demanding so much of Harry that it was only natural that he would push back, want to distance himself further.

By the time Natasha joined them, the potion was finished and the conversation had boiled down to Lily in a sullen silence only speaking up to correct James's answers to Harry's very clinical questions.

Harry, for once, wasn't the only one relieved to see the other fiery haired witch.

Natasha, as what James was coming to understand was the Natasha Way, was able to ascertain the mood and happenings of the room in a momentary assessment.

Merlin, she would have made a great Auror.

"I can't leave the two of you alone for a moment, can I?"

Lily scowled at her, her lips pulling back in a near snarl.

James, however, stood and smiling a welcome he said, "Natasha, how are you?"

She smiled, laughter in her cat green eyes, "I'm well, James, how are you?"

Teasing her a bit, he brought out his truly upper crest accent he had learned from his grandmother, "Pleasantly well, it is a fine day."

To James's astonishment, it was Harry who let out a small laugh.

 _Accents_ , James would remember that. Long ago, he had been funny, a prankster, someone more prone to jokes than reality, but that had been a very long time ago indeed.

* * *

Natasha was a bit fed up with Lily Potter.

Yes, she had every right in the world to be upset, to be wrong footed, but she had to understand that it was not Harry's responsibility to make her feel better about herself.

In fact, even if Harry did open his heart up, no holds barred, Lily was still going to have to deal with the emotional fallout of the last decade. There was nothing Harry could possibly do or say to fix her heart for her.

Of course, Harry wasn't exactly helping matters. Natasha had spotted that edge of guilt in his gaze that told her he had misspoken or been rude in some way that even he thought hadn't been appropriate.

But he was still a teenager,  _he_  had every right to make mistakes, and for all her broken parts, Lily was still the adult. If she wanted to be a mother figure in any way, she was going to have to put herself together.

Because if raising Harry had taught Natasha one thing, it was that the needs of the child must always outweigh the needs of the parents. That shouldn't be taken to extremes, but that was the correct balance, the balance that allowed for kids to be kids, allowed for kids to feel confident in the knowledge that they were loved.

"What happened?" Natasha asked finally as they walked the halls together.

James and Harry had already gone out to the pitch to practice transfiguration. She wondered if James had the nerves to try flying lessons again.

"Nothing."

"Bull shit."

Lily glared at her, her magic giving her eyes the appearance of finely cut emeralds lit from behind. "Fuck off."

The corridor they were in, one that Natasha favoured because it was one of the least adorned with portraits, was empty of students. She grabbed Lily's wand arm and proceeded to pin her to the stone wall, back first.

"Get off me!" she snarled, bringing up her leg to do damage as Natasha had made it impossible for her to go for her wand.

Natasha stepped into the other woman, halting most basic-self defence manoeuvres Lily might have utilized. "What the hell did you do? Harry looked downright contrite and James looked pleased to see me."

"I didn't do anything," Lily said struggling, "Bloody-hell! How strong are you?"

She ignored that question. She was one of the Soviets' attempts to recreate Captain America. And though she wasn't quite as strong as him, not quite as invincible, she wasn't human normal either.

"Just tell me, and I'll let you go."

Emerald eyes, so like Harry's and yet so uniquely Lily. Harry had never known the type of sorrow, of self loathing, of seething anger that roiled in Lily Potter's heart. Her voice was low when she answered, each word tight, strained as if she were holding onto a great weight perilously suspended above a cavernous drop.

"Harry told me," each word became slower, a long bowstring taught and ever so deliberately pulled back further, "to grow a pair."

Natasha released her arm but kept her body pressed against the shorter woman. They weren't dramatically different in height, but there was enough of a difference that Lily had to tilt her head up to meet Natasha's gaze as she put her hands to either side of her.

"Really?" Natasha asked, lowering her own voice, "that's harsh, I would have told you to-" she lowered her face to whisper, "lighten the fuck up."

Lily brought her hands up to push her back, but she hesitated, and like the predator she had been raised to be, Natasha saw the slight shift in her expression.

She leaned closer so that her next words were spoken against Lily's lips, "I would have told you-" she pressed her body in closer, trapping Lily against the wall. Lily didn't lean into, didn't ease into the contact or move her hands where they had become stiff at Natasha's hips, but neither did she fight. "-That I am not your enemy."

And Natasha kissed the mother of her child.

* * *

AN: Reactions, thoughts, ideas, or neglected butterflies, pretty please?


	13. Playing With Fire

Chapter 13 - Playing With Fire

Lily Potter felt a lot of things in that moment, a deer in the headlights, a deep rage that felt like the ocean drowning out all sound, and even a simmering lust that she had kept buried, that she hadn't, wouldn't, acknowledge.

Until now.

Lily didn't feel trapped like she should have pressed against the wall, she felt held. Natasha, for all her muscles and grace, was far softer than James, and her lips were softer too, fuller.

Natasha's kiss wasn't invasive, it was an offering, a question, a temptation.

But Lily didn't answer it, her sense of self wouldn't allow it. She didn't know if she wanted this or not, and she resented like hell how… how… manipulative Natasha was.

When she pulled away, stepped back, Lily wanted nothing more than to curse the other witch into a pile of ash.

But Lily had seen her speed, felt her strength, and knew she would never reach her wand in time.

So Lily Potter played along. Grabbing Natasha's robe front, she pulled the other woman toward her, into her, and kissed her back open mouthed.

Natasha jerked but didn't pull away, giving as good as she got.

Lily had never kissed a woman before, and the sensation wasn't unpleasant.

Natasha let slip a small moan and Lily smiled into that kiss. They pulled away from each other in a slow synchronized movement.

This time, it was Natasha who was left wide eyed. Lily let go of Natasha's robes, and Natasha let her hands fall from where she had lifted them as though she had begun to cup Lily's face.

Lily put one foot back and turned as if she meant to run away, only to use the positioning to propel the twisting of her body. So that when her closed fist struck, it was with the energy sprang from the ground up.

Lily didn't aim for her face, she aimed for a spot two inches inside of the skull. Natasha only had time to register what was happening before Lily felt the sweet, sweet sensation of bone cartilage breaking under her fist.

The sound was crunchy, sharp, and wet, informing her that she had most definitely broken the other woman's beautiful face. The injury gushed blood almost instantly. Natasha for her part only let out a soft grunt.

"Harry didn't inherit his strength from you, you conniving bitch," Lily said, taking several steps back. She was pissed, and even vindictively happy, but she was not stupid.

Yet Natasha didn't lash out. Straightening and holding her nose as if she meant to put it back into place herself, she said in a nasally voice, "Touche, Potter, touche."

Then with a pain tolerance that would have done Sirius proud, jerked her nose back into place with a silent wince.

"Shall we go see how the boys are?" Natasha asked civilly. She would have come off as completely normal if she hadn't been holding her sleeve to her nose to help stem the bleeding.

Keeping her distance, Lily motioned with her hand, and said sweetly, "After you."

Nataha's eyes smiled at her and they walked together out into the cold day.

As Lily walked, she had time to wonder if what had just passed between them would hurt James. At the moment, she was too invigorated with one upping the impossibly suave Natasha Romanoff to feel overly guilty. And besides, not that she wanted to take James for granted but a kiss wasn't enough to infuriate him, not even two kisses.

By the time they reached the pitch, the bleeding had slowed.

Lily was sort of annoyed Natasha was still walking steadily, broken noses were usually enough to put most people off their game.

It was only made worse by the fact that she would have sworn Natasha was smiling at her behind her sleeve.

Harry spotted them first and he gave Natasha an exasperated look, "You let someone punch you?"

She lowered her sleeve to show her bloody and bruising face, though Lily -who had on occasion punched others before, thought the swelling wasn't as bad as it ought to have been.

Natasha spoke to Harry, "I didn't let her punch me, I just pushed the game too far."

By 'game' she meant their battle to simultaneously murder one another and not upset Harry -which of course meant not murdering one another. But Lily had no illusions about what Natasha would have liked to do to her if she didn't have to play a civilized modern woman.

Lily knew that because it was exactly how she felt in return. True, Natasha wasn't technically the injured party, but that's only because she had ensured that Harry could neither be nor ever want to return home to them. And part of that surety had been making sure that Lily had been too angry, too confused for all the wrong reasons.

"Merlin, Lily, what did you do?" James asked. He came close and touched Natasha's chin, tilting her face upward so he could see the damage.

"She had it coming," Lily answered without an ounce of regret.

"Wait," Harry said, "you're telling me that you managed to punch my mom, for real?"

"Yes," Lily said, her son's question punching a hole in her high.

Would he be mad at her?

James pulled his wand, "Natasha, let me fix your nose."

"If you change its shape or colour, you best be prepared to sleep with both eyes open."

Smiling, James healed her without pulling a prank, as Harry asked, "But how?"

James turned to him, "You don't sound upset."

"I'm not, I just want to know how you managed it. I can hardly ever manage a hit, much less break her nose."

Lily's heart swelled, far from being upset, Harry seemed  _impressed_  with what she had done. And was that respect shining in his eyes?

"Wait," James said, echoing Harry's initial response, "you've tried to break you mother's nose before?"

Natasha patted his chest, "Relax, I taught him to save innocents and to not punch them in the face."

"You are not an innocent," Lily stated.

Natasha smiled at her, a smile that lit up her face and promised nefarious things. She all but purred, "I'd never claim that, Lily Pretty."

Lily dearly wished to rebreak her nose.

James interceded before she could say something foolish in front of Harry, "We were wondering if you both wanted to come over for dinner at our home tonight? Sirius and Remus are coming with desserts."

"I can't tonight," Natasha said.

But before Lily had a chance to be disappointed, Harry spoke up, "I'll go, if that's okay?"

James's expression must have mirrored hers because both Harry and Natasha smiled at them, half laughing.

"It's alright with me," Natasha said.

Lily wondered if Harry would have been impressed if she had managed to beat the crap out of Natasha the moment they met.

* * *

Peter collapsed on the couch next to MJ who was curled into a ball reading book with a tiger on the front cover.

He tried to think of something to say, but for once, he had no words.

And the things he had lost in his life... his parents, then later his uncle who had raised him, not to mention his humanity, and then in Tony, he had lost his mentor. Now, Aunt May and his friends...

Peter had been to freaking space before, lost five years of his existence, but never,  _never_ , had he expected to lose his universe, his very reality.

In hindsight, maybe he should have. He should have realized in a multiverse, this was possible.

"I don't even want to know why it happened, I just want to undo it," MJ said from behind her book.

Peter sighed, slumping into the couch. "Black Widow said I can't attempt to make it back until…" he sighed again, "I've gotten into so much trouble for doing what people have told me not to do, but I've also saved the world ignoring their advice."

MJ put down the book and reached for his hand, "I think… I tell myself that I want more than anything to return home. But  _anything_  is a dangerous word. I  _know_  that I don't want to die. I don't want to try getting home if the odds are impossibly against us. My… someone once told me that learning to be happy where we are can feel harder than struggling to get somewhere we will never be, but when you're always struggling for something impossible, you'll never find happiness."

Peter closed his eyes, lacing his fingers with hers, "So you're saying we can give up all happiness on the whisper of a chance we might get home, or learn to be happy here?"

She squeezed his hand, "I like Natasha, I think we should trust her. I just have a feeling, you know, that she's on our side."

He opened his eyes and turned to meet her gaze, "Same. I honestly didn't think she would be this nice."

"Awe, thanks, Peter, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me."

Peter nearly jumped out of his skin.

Natasha laughed, "We are going to have to work on your spider senses."

"How did you do that? And why didn't you use the door?"

"You're not the only spider in the apartment," she said with a smile, "And your senses are only going to work if you're paying attention or in mortal danger. But I can train you to be more aware."

"You are mortal danger," MJ said deadpanned.

Natasha batted her big baby-greens, "You're the sweetest."

MJ rolled her eyes and went back to her book.

* * *

James was exuberant.

Harry was not progressing well with transfiguration, but he had called him dad  _three_  times that afternoon. And now he was coming home with them. Not permanently, but it was the first time he had shown interest in being around either him or Lily without Natasha.

Apparating into the hallway, Sirius opened their apartment door for them, asking, "How did it g- Harry!"

Harry pulled his hand out of James's and narrowed his eyes at the crazy wizard, "Sirius."

Merlin, help them, he sounded so much like Natasha. James didn't even know them that well yet, but a person would have to be daft to not understand that he was a Romanoff.

James consoled himself with the glimpses he had seen of himself and Lily in him too.

Entering the new apartment that was a far sight cheerier than their last, Remus came around the corner, clearly having been setting the table as Sirius did… whatever Sirius did when he wasn't working. Most of the time that was drinking, the man was just a hair's breadth away from being an alcoholic.

"Harry, this is our friend Remus Lupin, Remus, Harry Romanoff."

Harry held out his hand and they shook.

James tried to see Remus the way Harry would. A clean shaven man, with sandy blond hair, and pale eyes. He looked older than he was because of the scars and his humble, albeit clean, clothing, but it was almost impossible to dislike the librarian. Well, not unless they knew what he was and were prejudice.

But Harry didn't know, and as far as James knew, wasn't prejudice, and yet, Harry put distance between himself and Remus almost immediately.

Remus didn't take it personally and said, "We're all set to eat."

The table could seat four, six with two extra chairs. Again, James was pleased when Harry willingly sat between him and Lily with Sirius across from him.

"So, Harry, how are you liking Hogwarts?" Remus asked.

"I like learning more magic, and the library is cool."

"I see why you were sorted into Ravenclaw then, I myself work at a library. The Ministry Archives is thrice the size of the one at Hogwarts."

"Neat."

"Make any friends?" Sirius asked, and James just knew that if he was in his grim form his tail would be wagging.

Harry shrugged, and James watched with fascinated horror as he drew into himself. The boy he had spent the afternoon with vanishing behind a placid expression.

What had Natasha taught him?

"Harry is exceptionally skilled at Charms," Lily said hurriedly.

"Ah, so you take after your mother," Sirius said smiling.

Harry's shoulders visibly stiffened, and he pierced the next cube of potato very precisely with the fork, but he didn't verbally protest like he would have when they first met.

James wasn't sure this reaction was better. Lily and he exchanged a look and he knew she wasn't sure either.

"Do you have a date to the Yule Ball?" Sirius asked.

"No."

James suppressed a sigh, why were teenagers so difficult?

Before any of them could try again to force conversation, Harry asked, "How dangerous is Albus Dumbledore?"

They all exchanged looks.

It was Remus who said, "Dangerous enough that it was foolish of your parents to go against him publicly."

"Remus…" James warned.

"No, James, it was stupid what you three did. Dumbledore is a good person. A great person, but he does have a temper. You're going to regret going against him, just like you're going to regret teaming up with the Malfoys."

"Of course, so says the one of us most forgiving of those who got off on charges," Sirius half growled.

"You're always the one calling me the peacemaker, well guess what? Challenging Albus Dumbledore isn't going to end in peace. Do you all realize this has the potential to tear our country apart?"

Harry spoke up, "If he is in a place of authority, then he should be challenged."

Remus's face softened, "Harry, you don't know what Dumbledore has done for our world."

Harry glared, "I don't need to know him.  _Everyone_  in power should be challenged, maybe not overthrown as such, but just because someone did good things doesn't mean they are a good person at heart, just like it doesn't mean a good person isn't capable of mistakes. As for the 'Great' Albus Dumbledore, the 'Greatest Wizard of your Time'? I've met him, he's an arrogant bastard and he should be held responsible for his actions."

Remus's face went cold at the swear word, "And what actions are those? What exactly has he done wrong?"

Harry shook his head, "I don't know exactly, but he's hiding something,  _somethings,_  and I know he is an enabler. People who actively enable crimes are just as guilty."

And James understood then just how disturbed Harry had been at Moody invading his mind. Which shouldn't have been surprising, he was an extremely private kid who had been raised with self-defence being such a principle in his life that he was damn near independent.

That someone could easily steal that away… well, that was never a comfortable realization, and certainly not something that would be forgotten or forgiven anytime soon.

James still couldn't understand how Moody could do that to their son.

At this point, Remus had thoroughly lost his cool, which took a lot for him, "You are a child, you don't understand-"

" _Watch it,_  Remus," Lily almost snapped his head off. "Harry isn't stupid, and neither are we. Albus Dumbledore is an extremely dangerous wizard. He is old, knowledgeable, crafty, and uncannily powerful, but as Harry said, he can't be allowed to go unchecked. He cannot continue to do whatever he pleases and face no consequences. As for the Malfoys, do you really think we trust them? We are only working with them in the public view because we share a common goal and they have influence. That by no means implies that we agree with everything they stand for or vise-versa."

"If it wasn't for Dumbledore, I would-!" Remus bit his tongue, shaking his himself. He sighed, bowing his head, "I guess it doesn't matter, the damage is done."

Sirius waved his hand, "Take a chill pill, Remy. If, as you believe, Albus is a good person then we have nothing to fear. And if there is something to fear it will be a good thing we exposed him."

Remus gave Harry a shrewd look, "I bet you had a good day. I bet your classmates have just been brimming with  _quiet_  solidarity."

Harry said nothing.

"Or maybe," Remus continued with more venom than James would have predicted. "Or maybe, you are here tonight not to be with your parents but to get away from Hogwarts."

James gaped at his friend, Sirius mirroring him.

"Get out," Lily said, her voice dangerously low.

Remus looked at her, "You don't know what you're doing, you're playing with fire and someone is going to get hurt."

Harry looked up at the man with an expression that was lethal in its evaluation, "Or maybe, what we should fear isn't the Headmaster, but fanatics like you."

Lily stood and pointed at the door, "Leave now, Remus."

"Thank you for dinner, James. Harry, it was nice to meet you, have a good night," Remus said tightly before departing.

"Harry, I'm so sorry-"

"Don't apologize, Lily," Harry cut her off, "you didn't do anything wrong. I'm glad you three stood up to the Headmaster."

James wondered how much of that gladness was because Natasha supported the choice. If he knew one thing about his son, it was that he trusted Natasha absolutely.

The rest of dinner was silent, James kept trying to catch Sirius's eye for help, but he was glaring down at his food, stabbing his veggies.

When they were done, James was not at all ready for Harry to go, especially on such a sour note. Did it matter that he might only have come to get away from the rumour mill at Hogwarts? A little, yes, but more than his reasons, James cared that Harry was here. As awkward as dinner had been, the space had felt…

It had been a long time since James could remember any place resembling home.

Sirius, however, finally got out of his own thoughts to save the evening.

"This house has electricity, I brought a movie if you wanted to stay a bit longer, Harry."

Harry looked relieved, and said, "Sure, I'll stay for a movie."

James wondered if it was relief about not returning to Hogwarts, or a desire not to have the night end so poorly.

James was going to kick Remus's butt for this one, the werewolf had no right to bring politics to the dinner table with their all but estranged son present for the first time since diapers.

"What movie is it?" Lily asked suspiciously.

" _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ ," Sirius announced proudly.

Lily narrowed her eyes, "That came out a while ago. I think my sister saw it with her then boyfriend."

Sirius wiggled the VCR tape, the plastic clinking together, "It's a comedy. You know that thing that causes laughter and smiles?"

Lily's lips twitched, then she said, "My sister hated it, so I suppose it is a must see."

James grinned, "That's the spirit."

The movie was… interesting.

Harry actually sat between Sirius and Lily, James at the end beside Lily.

James got a few chuckles, at one point whisper asking Lily if she weighed as much as a duck, and she made a few noises that sounded almost pained at some of the ridiculousness unfolding on screen. But neither she nor he cared about watching the movie as much as seeing Harry relax around them.

Sirius, despite having seen the movie already, barked uproariously throughout, but Harry; Harry straight up giggled when the knight announced 'it is but a flesh wound'. Harry's laughter was a rich balm that healed things in James's heart he had thought he had drowned to death years ago.

This was his son, this was his family.

This was home.

* * *

Late that night, after Harry had been returned to Hogwarts, as they were getting ready for bed, James finally questioned her. "So," he began, back turned to her as he stripped off his shirt and stored it in the closet, "are you going to elaborate on why you broke Natasha's nose?"

Lily waited until he turned back to face her and said, "She kissed me."

He didn't look surprised or angry or anything that people might suspect a man to feel when another incredibly attractive woman hits on their wife. James asked, "Are you alright?"

Lily felt something loosen in her chest and in that moment she remembered why she had fallen in love with this man. This once infuriating, irritating man who had grown up and won her with a thousand small kindnesses and his unending, unwavering care for her, no matter the hell they had been through, the hell  _she_  had put him through.

"Yes, I'm alright," and before he could ask or drop the subject, she admitted, "I kissed her back."

Humour danced in his hazel eyes but he kept a straight face, "So you could land a punch or because you wanted to?"

Lily had to hide a smile, then answered truthfully, "Both. Are you angry?"

He sighed and sat down at the end of the bed, holding out his hand to her. She took it and sat on her knees beside him on the bed.

He smoothed his thumb over her hand, they were both pale but James could tan under the sun whereas she was and would always be fairest creme. Or bright pinkish red if she was foolish enough to venture under the sun too long without protection.

"No, I'm not mad, but I might have been if you hadn't told me."

"You're not jealous," it was more a statement than a question.

"No, I'm not. It's been a long time since we burned for each other. I don't blame you for feeling… I know there are things I don't inspire in you anymore."

Her heart hurt to hear him say that, though she couldn't argue that a part of her was interested in what the other woman had sparked in her. But none of that should have mattered, James was her person. "I don't-"

He squeezed her hand, "I know you love me, Lily Flower. It's why I'm not jealous, I don't doubt you. And I would be lying if I said haven't looked at other women over the years as well."

Looking wasn't a crime, but fear crept into her, and she found herself clinging to his hand like a lifeline. "Do you want a divorce?" she hated how normal she sounded, hated how the very idea broke her heart.

She didn't know what she would do without him, she didn't know  _who_  she would be without him.

He took both her hands in his, "No, Lily, never. There is no one on this planet I want to wake up beside but you. I love you more than I could ever possibly love another. But Lily, we are  _always_  together. We have worked nonstop for the last thirteen years, travelling around the world in our spare time tracking down a hopeless target. Despair and grief have had more of a presence in our lives than either of our individual desires, hobbies, or happiness. We've been going at an unsustainable pace for what feels like forever and now that we've finally found our son, we have to face the fact that we lost ourselves along the way."

She was crying, "I don't want to leave you. I'm so, so sorry, James, I-"

He cupped her face in his hands, "Don't apologize, Lils, don't you understand by now that I would do anything for you? That I would do anything to see you happy again. Even if it meant sharing, even if it meant giving you up."

She shook her head, her tears falling faster now, spilling onto his palms, "I don't want you to give me up."

He let out a breath and bent to put his forehead to hers, "Good, because I don't want to give you up."

"Then why is it okay that I- that I cheated on you?"

He pulled back with a soft smirk tugging on his lips, "Lily, do you think I didn't see her seducing you? Natasha wasn't exactly being subtle about it. I could have interfered more, hell, I could have told you or even Natasha that I wasn't comfortable with it. But I didn't. I didn't like the idea that she was manipulating you, but to be fair, if Natasha had played nice, you would have steamrolled her. If any other person had stolen our son, that person would probably be dead by now."

"I wouldn't-"

"Yes, Lily, you would have, the idea of Harry became more important to you than who he is as a person. You would have continued to fight tooth and nail for our son even if it meant you lost his respect. Natasha has given you something to be angry about, and frustrated you to the point where you can't keep up with her, much less succeed in separating her from Harry."

She took that criticism, took it, held it, and acknowledged that it was only truth between them tonight.

"You're not jealous because I already failed you. I've been failing you for years because I couldn't let us move on. We stopped living because of me."

"That's not why I'm not jealous," he said, though he didn't contradict the content of what she had said.

Lily flushed, "Then why are you okay with it?"

"Because I don't own you, Lils. I married you because I wanted to share a life with you, not because I wanted to keep you as a prisoner."

She was crying again, stupid tears, "If our marriage is a prison then it was of my making, not yours, I should have-"

He kissed her, shut her up with his mouth on hers. It was so different from kissing Natasha, but far more welcome. Familiarity and the safety that familiarity offered was its own type of fire. A steady hearth rather than a destructive forest fire.

He pulled back long enough to say, "Then don't leave me, Lily Flower, you have my permission, if you need it, to do whatever you want but always come home to me."

"Always," she breathed and lost herself in him as he pulled her down on the bedspread.

After they found their release, an act that was one of passion and love rather than their typical means to an end, James nuzzled his face into the bend of her neck.

She threaded her fingers through his wild hair and tangled herself more solidly around him.

He whispered in her ear, "Did you enjoy kissing another woman?"

Instead of slapping him, she tickled him until he begged for mercy. His deep, joyous laughter filled the room like a classroom full of cheering charms. Yielding, she said, "It wasn't awful, but I still prefer you."

"Awwwe," he teased, putting on a crushed expression that he had used in school when she said something scathing to him. An exchange which had resulted only ever in interesting him more, "I was sort of hoping you might bring her back with you. I mean I love you, but Harry's evil stepmom is smokin'."

This time Lily didn't stop tickling him until he was in tears.

* * *

AN: Thoughts, reactions, ideas, or harmless white bunny-rabbits ye should not cross lest ye be willing to die? Ni?


	14. Scary Tiger

AN: Welcome back to the readers who have now seen End Game.

Chapter 14 - Scary Tiger

The dream flitted through time like a whisper on the wind, a grain of sand turned by the waves.

A very small Harry sat in a dark, small space, drawing with broken crayons by the light of a bare low voltage bulb.

Natasha watched and worried, unable to recall when she ever left Harry in such a place, as an overweight man opened the slot to the closest to bellow at Harry who cowered in the corner of what she now understood to be a small cupboard under the stairs.

She blinked, and then it was a different man with two faces who was smiling at her son. The second face rasped in an echoing voice, "The boy has it."

And the wizard held out his hand to her son, his voice high, "Give it to me, Mr. Potter."

Her son, so small, so afraid. His hand in his pocket, clearly hiding something he meant to keep safe.

Natasha had never seen him like this. She could never remember him being that small. In height, yes, but he had never been malnourished, never faced a foe with his shoulders rounded.

But before she could see what horror unfolded the dream skipped, like a tape overwritten, and Harry was older, but still so dreadfully small.

He wielded a sword, his movements quick and reactionary, but as if he had never been trained, as if it was the first time he had wielded such a weapon.

Natasha's son was very good with blades, she made sure of it when they discovered the inconsistency of guns. Though sometimes their bullets, aided by their magic, could hit the intended target when the aim was wrong, or penetrate cement walls beyond the metal of the bullet's capacity to do so. It was the inconsistency of above average performance compounded by the jammed gears that they couldn't depend on.

So Harry knew his blades.

But this younger, alternate vision of him, acted in desperation, stabbing into the giant serpent's mouth and in the process catching himself on a fang.

Natasha screamed, but she was voiceless here, with form nor voice to reach him.

This scene lurched and then a bird of flame was crying of her son as he died in a cavern. Only dimly did she notice the ruined diary and the motionless girl beyond him.

Again the seen blurred, Harry, older, shoulders straighter, he snapped a wand upward, sending a black haired wizard crashing into a rotting four poster bed that clasped around him.

"You shouldn't have done that," a very,  _very,_  ragged Sirius Black said, "you should have left him to me."

Sound dimmed as did the scene, the Potter's friends and Harry's classmates falling out of focus even as a rat turned into a man. It was as if Harry stood in a well of blurred shapes and forms and sound distorted, all Natasha could discern clearly was Harry's expression.

And what she saw there was nothing but sorrow and pain.

Her own heart squeezed as she watched him yell, the fearful hope in his emerald eyes tore Natasha apart.

The seen blackened, trees rose up around her, the silver light of a full moon giving the shadows depth as they condensed into a vortex of flying wraiths. At their centre, Harry was half collapsed on his knees over a body.

She wanted to scream at him to run, it was far too late for whoever he was attempting to protect. She had taught him better, taught him that dying with dead did not help them.

But her view was pulled back and a second Harry stood in the trees, wand pointed toward his own image and the body.

His expression…

For as long as she would live she would never forget that expression, the man she glimpsed in her son, the man who wielded more power than was to be believed despite every sorrow, every loss.

Natasha sat up in bed, her pulse in her throat. Her wand came to her hand and she checked the time, the orangey-red figures informing her it was 4 am, about an hour before she got ready for the day this late in winter.

She wanted to check on Harry, but more than that, she wanted to know what had been trying to eat his soul from his mouth. Or at least one of the Harrys.

Natasha was dressed before she could formulate a decision.

She checked to see that MJ and Peter were still asleep in their respective rooms before she left and locked the apartment.

She was on the street thinking she was going to Hogwarts when she made a snap decision to apparate to London. She would see Harry within the hour and if he didn't show she would tear down the castle.

She didn't apparate directly into the Potter's apartment. Sure, she could probably fend them both off, but she wanted information not to exchange blows with the half-awake cops reacting on instinct to home invasion.

Instead, she pounded on there door, loud enough that their neighbours would probably be annoyed.

Moments later, James Potter opened the door in his boxers, wand bare in his hand. He blinked hazel eyes at her, his round glasses slightly crooked on his nose.

"Natasha?" he asked. Then his gaze focused, "Is Harry-"

She nodded, pushing into the room, "He's fine. Do you people have anything in your world that look like faceless flying cloaks that have the ability to suck out souls?"

She realized it was a very specific question, and that she did not have much to go on in her dream to base 'soul eater' on, but that was the sense she had come away with.

James frowned at her, shutting and locking the door behind her, "Dementors. They guard our prison. Nasty things. We call the soul eating the Dementor's Kiss. Cleaner than execution, but considered a far worse fate than death."

"You have soullessness as a sentence for crimes?"

He nodded, "Dementors feed off the happy emotions, the living memories, of their prey. Prolonged exposure to them can drop a person into listless depression or insanity, forced to relive their most terrible memories endlessly."

"Cheery," Natasha said dryly, thinking of a few prisons she knew of with similar living conditions. Isolation and hopelessness could crush someone's spirit like that.

"Tea, coffee?" he asked as he turned to a kettle to boil water.

"Tea, please," she said, taking a seat at the island table. "Charges for petty crimes must be torturous."

He shrugged and started the coffee maker for himself. "Most people settle their own petty disputes. We have a lot of laws that enforced by civilians or sorted out in court with fines. From what Lily has explained to me, our society is a little behind the muggle one." Then he said with the voice of a man who wished politics didn't exist, "Unfortunately, a lot of our laws don't cover semi-aggressive crimes against muggles. Overall though, the worse the crime, the higher the security and concentration of Dementor exposure."

"You don't sound happy about that."

He shrugged again. "Natasha, why are you here asking about Demantors at four in the morning? You didn't see any in Hogsmeade, did you?"

"You dreamed it too then?" Lily asked tiredly, walking into the kitchen fully dressed and snagged the cup of tea James had been about to hand to Natasha.

Natasha frowned at the other woman, "If we had the same dream, was someone messing with us?"

James stiffened and nearly spilled the second cup of tea he handed to Natasha.

Lily sat across from Natasha, her back to her husband. "Maybe, maybe not. You saw Harry being attacked by Dementors trying to protect Sirius?"

Natasha shook her head, "I saw the Dementors but didn't recognize the figure. How do you fight them off?"

"A Patronus Charm, which I will be teaching you both this coming weekend. But fighting off that many…"

"You don't think they killed him do you?"

Lily shook her head, "No, he didn't die. Were the Dementors the last thing you dreamed of?"

Natasha nodded.

"I woke up when he was flying a broom around the Horntail in the First Task."

"Harry didn't fly, he had never flown a broom until James taught him."

"I didn't teach him much, I just gave him one," James said before muttering, "before my ensuing heart failure."

"So what was our dream? What caused it?" Natasha asked, then more abruptly, "Is time travel possible in your world?"

James and Lily exchanged a look as he sat down with a mug of black coffee.

He answered, "It is but only paradoxically. If someone time travels, then theoretically, it has already happened. Now, can either of you explain to me what you both were dreaming of exactly?"

"The two Harrys!" both Lily and Natasha answered him.

He frowned at them both, though humour glinted in his eyes, "Excuse me?"

"Harry saved himself from Dementors with a time turner," Lily explained.

"In your dreams?" James clarified.

She nodded and Natasha continued, "But that wasn't my Harry. It must have been a different reality in the multiverse or the what if of me never having existed here."

James gave her a look, but Lily said, "A reality where James and I stayed dead, too, I think. When Harry was in the cupboard, that was my sister's husband bellowing."

"You both saw a reality of what would have happened if Harry had gone with the Dursleys?" James asked, there was a simmer of rage in his words.

And Lily looked slightly ashamed.

"We are not responsible for the sanity of our family, nor their cruelty," Natasha said, her words sounding darker in her own ears with the Russian accent.

"So it was bad," he stated.

"Yes."

"So you took what I said about Death seriously," Natasha remarked.

"You knew we were on to Dumbledore, that was in part because of what you shared with us," Lily said. "The question is why are we sharing dreams of a time that no longer exists?"

 _Maybe_ , Natasha thought,  _because the dead aren't meant to come back to life._

Of course, that was no fault of their own. But these new glimpses only reaffirmed her resolve that Harry needed to be trained in magic. And also…

Natasha hadn't trained Harry to be an assassin, nor had she trained him to be an Avenger. But if two of this world's most powerful wizards, and subsequently their followers, were after him then maybe it was time for her to up the severity of his training. Peter could probably take Harry in a fight outside of prearranged rules.

She decided then and there that Harry was old enough. If he was going to face dragons and who knows what else, Harry would have to be the best he could possibly be.

The dream image of him small, afraid, and standing against all odds flashed throw her.

Fuck those odds.

And the same went for Peter, the boy Tony had brought into the field without training. She knew the boy had a good heart, was a natural hero, but Natasha wanted to give him more.

She thought of MJ and worry swirled through her, she had not shown the slightest interest in any type of physical exercise.

She sighed, being a mom had its difficulties, but deciding how deadly your children should be surely wasn't a question most mother's had to contend with.

Natasha looked at Lily and wondered what her advice would be. Protect your children was surely the standard answer.

But Natasha knew that the best way to protect someone was to give them the tools to protect themselves in  _addition_  to doing all in your power to keep them safe.

For a moment Natasha was engulfed by fear, knowing all too well that even the most dangerous person was still surpassable, still capable of mistakes, and accidents…

Accidents happened.

* * *

James had not imagined he would be waking up at 4 am today, not that it was such an odd occurrence that he was particularly frustrated. But he was tired enough that his reaction to Natasha and his wife having a shared dream -nightmare- was not overwhelming.

Just as he should have been a bit unsettled by being in nothing but his undershorts with the two fully clothed women. But he wasn't. Lily had seen him less, and Natasha, well, Natasha hadn't blinked an eyelash.

He was, however, annoyed at the thought that in any reality Harry would have been mistreated, and a little unnerved at how casually Natasha spoke of time travel and 'multiverses' when she was supposed to be somewhat of a novice when it came to magic.

It was like the more he learned about her, the more questions he had.

"Maybe it is a warning of some kind?" he offered.

"But a warning of what and from whom? It can't be Death contacting us, can it?" Lily looked to Natasha who was staring into her tea, her brow pinched. "Have you even been listening to us?" Lily demanded.

Natasha didn't so much as twitch, which was answer enough.

James reached out to her, laying his hand over her fingers that were clenched around her cup.

She startled, her green-grey eyes flying up to meet his gaze.

Shock swept through him at the raw fear he saw there, "Natasha," he asked, voice as gentle as he could make it. "Are you alright?"

She didn't pull away immediately, but shook her head, "I have to get going."

"Where could you possibly need to be at a quarter to five?" Lily asked.

Natasha's arrogance overcame her like a curtain drawn to keep out the light, "Oh, Lily Flower, the interest you show in my personal life is simply endearing."

She stood, her hand pulling gently from under his, and kissed Lily's cheek before disapparating away.

"I hate her," Lily growled.

James sipped his coffee and refrained from pointing out how deeply his wife was blushing.

* * *

"MOM!" Harry exclaimed, who had to roll, dodge, dodge, punch and roll again before doing the splits to avoid trap, after trap, after trap.

Peter was laughing as he leapt and flipped from branch to branch, "I thought you were used to this kind of training, little Romanoff?"

And then it was Harry who was laughing when Peter was yanked up by his foot from a trap Mom had placed in the trees.

All the while she jogged along with them, easily sidestepping every trap she had set.

Harry had gone through extreme training with his mom before but this was…

Today was different.

And he thought that whatever Albus Dumbledore had in store for him would be nothing compared the creativity of the Black Widow.

No sooner had he thought that did he have to duck a freaking shuriken.

"MOM!" he exclaimed again.

In the distance Harry heard Peter fall from his trap, then fall along with every tree branch Mom had either weakened or illusioned.

"You always wanted to be an Avenger," Mom sang as she waited for them ahead.

Harry's resolve hardened, there was no greater challenge, no higher achievement then surpassing his mother's expectations.

* * *

Peter had a black eye by the time he sat down to have breakfast, MJ having already gone to the castle.

"So is there a special reason you were trying to kill us today?" he asked with a smile. It had been fun, well, except for the near decapitation when he assumed that the same trap Harry had gone through wouldn't reactivate.

"Neither of you were in any danger of dying."

He eyed her, "Yeah, except, you know, from potential decapitation."

"Illusion, Peter, if the 'blades' had hit you it would have been a slap of a stick."

He shook his head, "That's not what my senses told me."

"Did you feel that something was there, or did you hear the werring of an active chain blade?"

He frowned, "I felt that it was there- I-" he shook his head, "I didn't hear a machine but I felt the air turning, the vibration, the-"

"With the magic of this world, I could create an illusion real enough to walk on but not so strong to jump on. I used a lesser form of transfiguration that would snap back to its original form if touched."

"So it was real?"

"Partially, until challenged."

"That makes no sense."

"You should ask James. I am terrible at explaining transfiguration, but it is rather instinctive for me. It's like the is a scale between the properties of the object and it being completely transformed."

"Who's James?"

"James Potter is Harry's birth father."

"Oh," Peter said, and poked at his omelette, "Is Harry upset he gave him up, if it's alright for me to ask?"

She sighed, "James didn't give Harry up, neither did his mother, Lily."

"Um…They're alive? Oh, but then…" Peter was lost.

"I thought they were dead. But in addition to Death bringing me back to this universe after my death, they also brought Harry's parents back, after they had both been murdered."

"When did you find out they were alive?" Peter asked.

"A month or so ago."

His eyes went wide, and he couldn't imagine the pain of that. "Does Harry blame you?"

She sighed, "No, he knew from the beginning that I would never have chosen to keep that from him. I would never have separated him from a loving family had I known."

"How old was he?" Peter asked, "When you took him in?"

"A year and a few months."

He smiled, "Saving the world and fighting bad guys to changing diapers, that must have been quite the change."

She smiled in turn, "Not as different as you might expect."

"Well, at least there wasn't anyone gunning for you."

Her smile grew, "Actually, there were quite a few assassins after him."

He frowned, "Jeez, what did they have against a baby?"

"I still don't understand it, but I will find out."

"Are you okay? You've been kind of tense all morning," he asked, not knowing if he should ask her that or not. Natasha was kind of scary.

She nodded, "I'm fine."

She gave no hint that she was lying, but Peter knew that she was anyway, not pressing, he asked, "How long did it take you to set up that course?"

"Fifteen minutes," she said blandly.

Yep, Peter thought, Natasha Romanoff was the scariest Avenger. What could she have done if she had time to play with people who were her enemies?

"You handled yourself well, but you have a lot of room for improvement."

He grinned, "I know. Fury was all about me coming on as an Avenger. You know, after you, Captain America, and Mr. Stark left the team was kind of broken up. Mr. Strange had other responsibilities and Fury wanted me to essentially drop out of school, which I guess now I have…"

"Wait, Fury wanted you to what? Genius you may be, but you are too young to be hoisted with that much responsibility," she said, and Peter was pleased to hear her say 'too young' not as if it were a bad thing, just as a boundary that should have been respected. "And what do you mean left? Are Steve and Tony alright?"

Peter winced and realized that Natasha had died before the end. "Um, Cap is alright, he's just old now, he's, um well he went back in time again and stayed there to be with Agent Peggy Carter."

Natasha's face softened for a moment, "She was always his one."

"Yeah, they were good together, I still don't understand how time works though because, um well, never mind."

"What about Stark?" she asked, her cat green eyes sharpening on him. "What happened to Tony?"

Peter tried really hard not to slump into his seat, he knew that Natasha was beautiful, but in that moment he thought her beautiful in the way of really big tigers. Pretty eyes, amazing fur, but at that moment he was much more concerned with her pointy teeth. "He saved everyone with the infinity gauntlet. He brought everyone back into reality. But using the stones killed him."

Natasha stayed posed in her seat, and she asked through lips that hardly moved at all, "Pepper, Morgan…"

"They're okay, you know, as well as anyone could be when they lose a loved one."

The agent seemed to swallow her pain and she asked him, "How are you? I know he meant a lot to you."

His throat tightened and he coughed slightly to clear it, and put a bite of the omelette in his mouth, "Yeah, I'm fine. It's been a year, I didn't know him that long either so…" he gulped down some of his water, knowing he was failing at being slick.

"It's hard to lose our mentors, especially if we came to see them as people too. He was heartbroken that we lost you in the snap, that he brought you to space in the first place. If Tony died, in part, to bring you back, he would have done so a thousand times over."

Peter looked down at his plate, and answered more seriously than he had talked to anyone else about it, "He must have regretted leaving Morgan Stark behind. Both my parents died, my uncle who raised me… I, I hate the idea that he sacrificed himself for us, for me. I hate it more that Morgan lost a father. I know what it is like to lose…"

"Peter, look at me."

He looked up reluctantly.

"What makes a parent, what makes a hero, is putting your life on the line in place of someone else. If Tony hadn't tried, he wouldn't have been able to forgive himself, he wouldn't have been able to move on. Morgan is going to grow up knowing that her father loved her, that her dad gave his life trying to make the world a better place, knowing that he would have stayed if he could have. She will know that Tony wanted to stay."

Peter rubbed at his eyes, pinching them shut.

He missed Tony, he did, he really did, but in Natasha's words, he heard something that he should have known but hadn't been ready to face.

Uncle Ben had wanted to stay. And he hadn't given his life to save the world it had just been over a petty crime a -that if Peter hadn't been…

Natasha's hand on his shoulder jerked him out of his thoughts, his spider senses telling him too late that she had gotten up and approached.

"It's not your fault he died, Peter," she said as if she could read his thoughts, as if she knew he wasn't thinking about Tony anymore.

He gritted his teeth, "Yes, it is."

She sat in the chair beside him, "Peter, in my long life I've killed a lot of people. I have killed good people, bad people, and all the flavours in between. I've killed mothers and fathers, and I've made choices that led to others dying unintentionally. I've failed on assignments and lost people, lost friends, friends that meant more to me than my birth family ever did. But you have to hear me on this, no matter what any of us have in the way of abilities or gifts, brains or brawns, we're only human, we're only living creatures that can only act in the moment, who can always make mistakes no matter how hard we try. You can't hold yourself responsible for everyone you lost, Peter, because I know, and you know, that the people who loved you would have forgiven you and would have wished nothing but the absolute best for you."

Scary tiger or no, Peter hugged her. And Natasha hugged him back, and he got an inkling of why Harry had never doubted this woman.

Peter had only known her briefly as the deadly and beautiful agent with all the secrets who managed to be completely human yet keep up with gods and super tech, but he hadn't seen how deeply she cared for those around her.

But then he realized, somewhat belatedly, that Natasha Romanoff, just like Tony Stark, had made the same choice to sacrifice herself so he and so many, many others could go on living.

* * *

Harry was exhausted by first period. His muscles ached in a way that hedged toward pain, as if he might be a bit hurt. He wasn't sure if that was because Mom had gone paranoid extreme today or because he had been rushing to keep up with Peter.

Peter who was two years older, with super strength, super healing, and super senses.

"You look like crap," MJ informed him as they took their seats.

Harry grinned at her, "Thanks, always good to have confirmation."

Padma looked appalled, "Harry, you look perfectly well just as you always do."

Both he and MJ gave the girl a look, but she was saved from their response as Professor McGonagall entered the room.

To Harry's own self-annoyance, MJ was better at Transfiguration than him, although his Latin was still the best in the class.

"You'll get it," Padma encouraged.

He nodded, feeling like the magic was just a hair's breadth out of reach. His lessons with his dad were helping, but he still just couldn't get it.

MJ, however, worked the magic like a fish to water.

By the end of class, she was almost smiling, Hermione looking put out that another novice was almost outshining her.

"Who is the new girl?" Fleur asked as she watched MJ over Harry's shoulder at lunch.

"My step-sister, I suppose," Harry answered pulling a near mountain of food on to his plate. He hadn't made it to breakfast in time today, not that he had been particularly hungry after working out that hard. His arms shook slightly at the muscle strain. Even though he was now achingly hungry, he was half debating going back to his dorm to take a nap before his next class.

"What happened to her?" Hermione enquired.

"That's none of your business," Harry said before taking a bite of his chicken.

She frowned at him, "I wasn't trying to be invasive, just by the way you said she was your step-sister, it didn't sound like you meant she was  _always_  so. Did you grow up together?"

Harry ignored the question.

Padma rescued her, "Do you think she will be alright in Slytherin?"

He smiled, "I'd be more worried about the Slytherins than MJ."

* * *

"So, are you an orphan?" Draco asked MJ.

She didn't look up from her book as she idly picked at a bunch of grapes on her plate. She wasn't all that hungry and the book on potions was ridiculous in its absurdity and therefore morbidly interesting.

"What is America like?" Viktor Krum asked across from her.

She looked up briefly, "New York is cold in winter, hot in the summer. There are lots of people in the city."

"My mum has taken me to New York City," a boy said.

She didn't glance up, just turned the page. She wasn't looking to make friends, for all she knew, she might get sucked back into another reality. And these people were…

She had made her friends. She didn't want to start over, and if she was starting over then it would be to learn magic, not to waste time with small talk with these awkward teens.

The people surrounding her got the hint eventually, leaving her be with her fruit and her book.

* * *

Harry and MJ sat together watching Padma and Hermione brew their potion. Harry wasn't skilled enough to help yet, though he was taking notes. MJ, alternated between watching the brewing process, watching the professor and the class, and drawing in her sketchbook with a pencil.

Professor Snape didn't remark on his first few passes by them, though he glared at her pencil as if it offended him.

Near the end of class, the professor's cool broke and he asked disdainfully, "What do you think you are doing, Ms. Jones?"

MJ flipped her notebook around to show a decent drawing of the professor's scowl. She said in a completely disinterested voice, "Drawing people in distress."

Harry bit his cheek to keep from laughing.

Snape's face went white with rage.

"Twenty points from Ravenclaw."

"She's a Slytherin," Neville remarked lightly, he too had seen the drawing and was fighting not to laugh.

"Twenty points from Slytherin, then," Snape snapped.

A brief moment of shock crossed his expression as he realized what he had just done, and the class went deathly quiet.

They were all saved by the bell.

When they made it into the hall, the door slammed behind them, the entire class, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, burst into laughter.

MJ rolled her eyes at them all.

* * *

Harry had finally found the people stealing Luna's shoes, by way of a tracking charm he had to hand off after enlisting Padma's help when the charm led him to the girl's dorms. And tired or not, that night he was going to enact vengeance.

Padma brought down all the shoes from some older year's room, a student by the name of Marietta.

It was pretty easy to discern which shoes were Luna's as they were smaller, colourful, or with some type of accessory on them. First, Harry charmed Luna's shoes to be protected, both to be more comfortable and to last longer, which were some of his mom's favourite charms.

Black Widow had been ecstatic when she learned she could wear spiked stilettos and work out in them without fear of blisters or broken heels.

Then he cursed Marietta's shoes, each shoe was gifted an individual gift that would act at different times and wouldn't automatically be traced back to the shoes, unless she made the logic jump between her misfortune and Luna getting her footwear back.

The next morning in the middle of breakfast. Marietta and her friend beside her, Cho, started screaming bloody murder as spiders crawled up their legs.

Padma whispered to him, "You are an evil, evil person."

He whispered in her ear, close enough that thick smooth strands of her dark hair brushed his lips, "Can this evil, evil wizard take you to the Yule Ball?"

Padma pulled back giggling, but nodded, yes, her brown eyes filled with mirth and delight.

* * *

AN: Thoughts, reactions, ideas, or lonely tigers? Please?


	15. The Curse of the Unicorn Blood

_Thank You_ , to the Reviewers, as always, this one's for you.

P.s. Picture Captain Barboso spawns with Disney's Hades ;)

Chapter 15 - The Curse of the Unicorn

_Weakness!_

Voldemort sent another tumbler hurtling toward the wall, it shattered with a burray of twinkling shards winking in the firelight as they fell like rain onto the hardwood.

He could neither taste nor feel, he was cursed. He alone had survived to bear the true horrors of drinking unicorn blood, a prolonged life, at the cost of a cursed half life.

Well, so had Quirinus, but fuck him. Quirinus was a coward and about as powerful as a third year student and his suffering meant nothing. If it wasn't for his outlandish shows of loyalty, he wouldn't have qualified as a Death Eater.

But this damned curse, Voldemort had assumed that Philosopher's Stone, stolen so sweetly from Gringotts ensuring the death of the Flamels, would have helped him to restore his body, a healthy, untainted body.

He had been wrong, terribly misjudged the potions he had instructed Quirinus to feed him. It shouldn't have mattered that his soul was not whole, the Elixir of Life was meant to heal him, keep him sustained.

Yet the results of his fractured soul, his new body tainted somehow still by the unicorn blood, had not produced what he had intended. At times, he thought it would be better to be possessing someone, and that too was now lost to him, what he had…

The body was antonyms, and that was the best he could say about it.

His form was pale, humanoid -if noseless and hairless, but also lacked a certain physicality, that was to say, if he used too much of his magic, it would drain him. Drain not his energy stores of magic but his very life force. Leaving his body to join the dark robes that shrouded him, visible, opaque, but not solid. Misting at his feet, it could extend, he could reach the point of a shade, something crossed between a ghost and poltergeist.  _No-one_  would mistake him for a human. The benefit was that he required no food or drink save for the Elixir of Life to replenish his magic. The drastic down side was how limited his magic was, one casted spell could undo him.

He was that weak.

He threw another tumbler at the wall, the destruction doing little to soothe him.

He couldn't continue like this, he needed a human body to conquer the Wizarding World. He needed his magic.

"M'lord," Quirinus grovelled from the doorway, "The Daily Prophet."

Voldemort snatched it, his black robes following the movement like smoke from a banked fire.

His eyes scanned the headlines. Dumbledore's background was being scrutinized dominated the conversations, the result of both the Malfoys and the  _Potters'_  declaration against the fool.

Voldemort had been simultaneously pissed and relieved when that news had first broken. He couldn't risk reaching out to his Death Eaters who had not sought him out. If the Malfoys rebelled he wouldn't have had much defence against them. Yes, they would have wound up dead, eventually, but Voldemort didn't have the energy to spare nor would he risk being exposed to the Ministry.

Or more precisely, the Potters.

James and Lily Potter, who he had  _murdered_ , were the largest thorns in his side. His loyal people had fled the country because the Potters had left no stone unturned in those years after his fall. Spurred on by their ferocity, Aurors Shacklebolt, Bones, and the Longbottoms had covered everything in between.

Knockturn Alley was a decent part of the city now, if someone wanted to go to the Blackmarket they had to go to the Continent.

Only the courts retained some respectable corruption, but Ministry was all but ran by the Aurors Office, the Minister of Magic played second fiddle to Madame Bones.

It made Voldemort's take over all the more problematic.

As if it wasn't problematic enough already.

Insult to injury of having his spell backfire against a baby, was not only the orphan's damn parents inexplicably coming back to life, but the freaking baby had survived too.

Harry Potter.

No, not Harry Potter.

_Harry Romanoff._

And as for the mystery to all of his disappeared Death Eaters, all the wizards and even the handful of witches he had sent after the Boy Who Lived over the years:

Natasha Romanoff.

Disappeared, because when they did return, they returned in body bags. Only his Bellatrix and Barty had survived Romanoff.

The damned assassin who had kidnapped the only boy with the power to defeat him.

Voldemort dropped the paper. "Does Crouch have any leads on the Romanoff woman?"

"No, Sir."

Voldemort picked up the bottle of liquor he had been trying to drink, that spilled down his tongue in a flavourless, pleasureless, effectless wash that had done nothing but make him crave life.

He threw it at the mantle.

He would get his body back, he would use the blood and death of the boy who damned him.

The Potters, the Romanoffs would suffer.

They would know death.

* * *

Peter had done a lot since becoming Spider-Man. Stealing Captain America's shield, fighting his first crush's father, going to space, getting zapped in and out of existence, and that whole thing in Europe.

In that time, Peter had certainly learned how to pull a punch, but he really hadn't trained a lot, per se, with regular humans in a circle with a bunch of rules.

So on the seventh time, Peter was thrown out of the circle with his own momentum, he growled, "In a real fight, Romanoff, I'd own you."

"In a real fight, Parker," Harry grinned back, "I'd have magicked you away by now."

"Assuming you could hit me," Peter said back, "but your just a little to-"

Harry foot swept him, and Peter used the momentum of his own fall to spring backwards from shoulder blades to elbows, landing upright on his feet -over the drawn circle.

He hung his head and Harry grinned at him, "Strength isn't everything."

"That's just because I'm holding back," he grumbled, which was and wasn't the truth. Just because he wasn't using his full strength didn't make up for all the hits Harry had got.

Harry Romanoff had some scary skills. He was a thinker and seemed to plot fifteen different sets of reactions that altered to the next plan the millisecond it took Peter to avoid one sequence. But, "If it wasn't for the stupid circle."

Natasha stepped in then, "Alright, little spider, let's see what you got. I might not be as invincible as Steve but I can still take a punch." She got in a stance, Harry yielding the field, and motioned Peter forward with a beckoning hand.

He was a hell of a lot less worried about accidentally hurting her than Harry. So he let himself go.

And quickly found himself on his butt. She had pulled the same move Harry had, just with more speed and strength.

Smiling, Peter threw himself into the sparring. Natasha dodged everything he threw at her except when she was using his own attacks to toss him around. She hadn't exactly beaten him, he wasn't in any way injured an hour later, but he hadn't been able to land anything on her whereas she had cupped his ears a few times. In a real fight, he would have used the trees, maybe grabbed her leg and broken it, or maybe even punch her face hard enough to make her drop.

But as with Harry, had it been a real fight, there would have been magic involved.

Heck, with Black Widow's reputation, there probably would have been hidden knives involved.

Knives that his senses probably would have let him avoid. Probably.

* * *

Hagrid wasn't at all pleased to see them.

No big surprise really. If there was ever a Dumbledore's Man, it would be Rubeus Hagrid.

However, the half giant, being who he was, still invited Lily, James, Sirius, and Nymphadora in for tea.

Sirius, being a good uncle/second-cousin, didn't let his niece eat one of the scones.

"What do you lot want?" Hagrid asked gruffly, "I ain't done nothing for Aurors to be knocking on my door, nor has Dumbledore for that matter."

His glare was impressive, James thought, but only Nymphadora shifted in her seat. Sirius was a bit touched, and with all the shit James and Lily had been through, well, they probably wouldn't have blinked first if it were a full-blooded giant scowling at them.

"We are here about the events concerning your expulsion, all those years ago. As we've come to understand it, you were expelled, your wand broken, but you were never formally charged with a crime. Despite a young lady's death, the courts treated it as an in house fix, resolved at Hogwarts."

Hagrid stiffened but looked away in what could have been shame or sorrow, perhaps both, "The spiders are dead, if you are asking about the Acromantula in the forest."

"No, we're here abou-"

"Wait," Nymphadora interrupted James, "You mean to tell me that you were expelled from the school for breeding illegal spiders in a school that a student presumed dead because of said spiders, and then you continued to breed them in the forest?"

And that was the reason the girl was going to make a great Auror, if she could survive Sirius, or at least, survive without murdering Sirius.

"I wasn't breedin' 'em when I was in school," Hagrid said hotly, "And Aragog didn't kill nobody. He didn't kill Myrtle. Dumbledore believed me."

It was Nymphadora's turn to stiffen, "Albus Dumbledore is not the law."

"I didn't do nothin' wrong."

Then Sirius asked the important question, "What happened to the spiders?"

"They were murdered."

"By who?"

"The centaurs won't tell me, though they saw it."

James didn't know for sure, but for some reason, if he had to guess…

Lily met his gaze.

Natasha Romanoff.

"Hagrid," James redirected, "We aren't here about the spiders. Though, if you could just restate that Aragog, the only Acromantula you had at the time, did not harm or terrorize any student in 1942 to 1943, please?"

"Aragog didn't do nothin' to no one," Hagrid ground out, clearly furious, "No one even knew about him except Tom."

"Tom who?" James asked.

"Tom Riddle."

"And what was your relationship to Mr. Riddle."

"Well, he was a prefect, wasn't he. Slytherin student, popular. He was top of his year in every subject and he was handsome, but he was nosy. And he was mean when there was no one around to see," Hagrid went on, his anger leaving him as he got lost in his memories. "People followed him around, they were meaner. They did bad things, that's when Slytherins went bad in my book. It wasn't You-Know-Who, it was Tom. Tom who had everyone wrapped around his fingers and let others take the fall for his ideas. Dumbledore saw threw him though. Tom couldn't pull no wool over his eyes."

"Do you think it was Mr. Riddle who was responsible for Ms. Warren's death?" Lily asked.

Shock swept over Hagrid's face, as if as 'bad' as this Tom was, Hagrid just didn't have it in him to believe a student would kill another student, "No, no. Tom woul…" He shook his head, "No, Tom wouldn't do nothing like that. He was the shining star of Hogwarts. I didn't like him, he wasn't a good person, but he wouldn't kill no one."

James found that distinctly unlikely, "Then how was Mr. Riddle a bad person? What did he do behind the professors' backs?"

"Well, he was manipulative, wasn't he? He was part of the Slug Club, always chatting up the teachers, but he spent a lot of time in the restricted section of the library and was always sticking his nose in other people's business, skulking around the castle at all hours.  _He_  never got in any trouble being out past hours. He was such, such a busy body."

"What sort of things did his friends do?" James asked, ignoring Lily's wince about the Slug Club. She might have been friends with Snape, but she hadn't liked those parties much.

"They pick on other students, especially the younger years and muggleborns. Some were even into the Dark Arts, like I told ya, right around Tom is when the Slytherins went bad."

"Did Mr. Riddle practice the Dark Arts?" James asked.

"He was the very best in Defense Against the Dark Arts, I know that. The last time I can recall seeing him was after he graduated, he came back to the school to apply for the DADA position, Dumbledore told him no. But never heard of Tom practising the Dark Arts, it would just be sort of queer if all his friends did and he didn't, him being their leader in all. But like I said, he never got caught doing nothing wrong."

"You said he spent time in the restricted section," Lily pointed out.

Hagrid waved that away, "He had permission. Tom always had permission to do whatever he wanted. Everybody liked Tom."

"But not you," James pressed, thinking that as far as interrogations went, Hagrid was more talkative than a culprit doped up on truth serum.

"Course not me, he got me expelled didn't he?"

Lily gently tapped the table with two fingers twice, confirming to James and Sirius this is what she knew from her trip in the living diary.

"How exactly did Mr. Riddle get you expelled?" James asked.

"Well, rumours were going on about Salazar's Chamber of Secrets being opened."

James scratched his chin, in a silent motion saying to his wife,  _Jeez, Lils, that was one hell of a guess._

Her face stayed stoic, but the corner of her mouth tugged up in the slightest of smirks,  _I know._

Hagrid continued, unaware that he was being interrogated in a murder investigation. "And Myrtle, poor Ravenclaw girl, got bullied something terrible, they used to call her Moaning Myrtle, because she wailed so much when people went after her. But after she died everyone thought they were going to have to shut down the school until they found a cause for her death. Which they said was my friend but it wasn't him."

"And do you know how she died?" James asked.

"In the girl's lavatory on the second floor, no one knows how, she just dropped dead."

James frowned, "No spider bites, no wounds, no signs of any weapons, magical or otherwise?"

"Nope, nothin', she just dropped dead."

"So why wasn't it assumed someone had used the Killing Curse on her?" Sirius asked.

"Well, because she didn't remember, did she?"

They all blinked at him.

"She died, right?" Nymphadora asked, "She is currently dead, correct?"

"She's currently a ghost," Hagrid informed them.

James would have groaned aloud, how was  _that_  not in Warren's file?

"I think she got a ghostly restraining order on her too because she nearly pestered one of her bullies to death."

"But she doesn't remember how she died?" James asked, once more wondering about the girl's file.

"Nope, she just dropped dead."

"Again," Sirius asked, "how is that not the work of the Killing Curse?"

Hagrid shrugged, "I don't know, I just know that Dumbledore kept me from going to jail or being homeless and Tom got a ruddy trophy, 'Special Award for Services to the School.'" He sounded half bitter, half tired.

"And by turning you in, Mr. Riddle kept the school open and the whole incident was hushed, which is what allowed you to stay on the grounds," James concluded.

Hagrid nodded sadly.

They left shortly afterwards.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Sirius exploded, "This is why nobody likes Aurors! Where the hell was the investigation!?"

"Hagrid shouldn't have been expelled," James agreed.

"Yeah, or allowed to breed spiders," Nymphadora added.

"I think Slytherin's monster is a Basilisk," Lily said.

They all stopped dead in their tracks, and looked at her.

Nymphadora's hair turned green, "What?"

"I had a weird dream, and if I remember from classes, Basilisks have the ability to kill with a glance."

Her dream where Harry killed a giant snake. James suddenly felt cold, the thought of a child, much less his son, going up against an abomination like that. That wasn't a snake, that was a wingless, poisonous dragon with the sight of death.

"We can interrogate Ms. Warren when we visit Harry over the weekend."

Sirius laughed abruptly, all their gaze flew to him.

"What?" Nymphadora asked, "How is this funny?"

"My parents," he said between barks, "my parents would have just loved to know that their precious Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets was hidden in the girl's bathroom."

* * *

"So, how are you liking Hogwarts?" Peter asked, Natasha having retreated somewhere.

It was a large apartment but not that large, it bothered him that he couldn't always tell when she was in or out of the apartment. It was unnerving and made him doubt his senses. The worst was not knowing how she did it, people made noise, it was what people did.

MJ shrugged, "It's fine."

"Do you like having magic."

"Sure."

He frowned, "Okay, I honestly can't tell if you like it or hate it."

"It's fine," she repeated, opening her book.

"MJ…" he pried, "It-"

She slammed the book shut, "It's amazing, alright, is freaking amazing. I'm in a damned storybook where I have magical powers that seem to be only limited by my imagination, study, and practice. It's the ultimate escapism, but it's  _real._  Magic is  _real._  And I'm magic, not some random science, not some experiment or mutant thing, just magic, and there exists dragons and horses with wings."

"But?"

" _But_ ," she growled, "But I lost everything. My family, my old life, our friends, there gone. It's like being trapped in a Disney movie where awful things have to happen so the main character can be on their own in order to be gifted."

He reached for her hand, "I know and-"

She jerked away from him, pulling her knees up, "No. No, you don't know, Parker, you don't get it. I'm happy and they're gone. They must think that something terrible happened to me and… what possible right do I have to be happy here? Happy being magical, when, by the way, half the magical world doesn't like me because my parents weren't magical?"

"I understand-"

"How could you possibly understand?" she snapped, hugging her knees tightly to her.

"Because about the time I got bit by a spider and got my powers, my uncle died and it was completely my fault."

She stilled, and blinked at him, "You think you killed your uncle?"

"Uncle Ben was the best, the absolute best, I didn't know my parents much, he and Aunt May raised me. And Uncle Ben, there was a robber, a common criminal, I don't even think the guy meant to shoot, but he had a gun and he shot my uncle. If I hadn't been running around doing whatever it was I thought I was doing, had I been there, been home where I was supposed to be, then Uncle Ben wouldn't be dead. If I didn't have this stupid, incredible powers, he wouldn't have died."

MJ uncurled around her book, and scooted toward him, saying firmly, "You didn't kill him, it wasn't your fault."

He smiled sadly at her, "Logically, I hear you, Aunt May said the same thing. But I still feel…" He couldn't finish, guilty was an adequate enough word for what he felt.

She hugged him, "I know."

He held onto her and closed his eyes, burying his face in her hair.

What felt like hours later might have been minutes, Natasha came around the couch to drape a blanket over them both.

Peter opened his eyes as she lowered the lights. He mouthed at her,  _How long have you been here?_

Natasha merely smiled at him, kissed his head, and ruffled his hair, just like Aunt May had a tendency to do.

Peter stretched his legs out when Natasha moved the textbook, and MJ readjusted in her sleep.

It probably shouldn't have pleased him so much that she snored a little in her sleep. But it did, and he was happier for having MJ in his life, even if they had unwillingly been made to abandon their loved ones in another universe, in another time.

Whatever happened, they still had each other.

* * *

MJ performed the spell to perfection, Harry performed the spell to a maddening level of imagination and power.

MJ's desk was a smooth mirror of ice, Harry's half of the classroom -assisted by a half-quarter tilt of his staff, had turned into a winter wonderland.

"Very good, Mr. Romanoff," Professor Flitwick grinned, "Now undo it and perform the spell on your desk."

A backward half-quarter turn, and the ice melted away in a rapidly dispersing mist as if time where rewinding. And then Harry smoothed his hand over his desk, so like MJ's, it was a mirrored surface of frozen liquid.

Hermione glared at them both, then back down at her desk where a rippling fount of ice had spread from her wand. She sighed, then started pestering Harry and MJ on technique, Padma winking at Harry.

Hermione was finally coming around.

oOo

Harry was walking with Padma and Hermione back to their dorm when a streak of blonde curls, bumble-bee yellow launched herself at him.

Had it been anyone else he would have resented them like hell for catching him off guard.

But it was Luna, and Harry found it damn near impossible to resent Luna Lovegood.

She looked up at him with large luminous eyes and smiled.

"You found my shoes," she whispered to him in awe.

He hugged her, "I told you I would. Come on, we have to get in before curfew."

With an arm around her shoulders, they entered the dorm, Hermione having already answered the password.

Padma smiled at them, and said in a low voice, "I feel sort of bad Cho got some of the spiders, but she should have better taste in friends."

"Agreed," Harry said emphatically.

"Spiders?" Luna asked frowning, then it dawned on her, "You didn't have to do that for me, Harry."

Harry gave her a little squeeze, "Yeah, I did, nobody messes with my friends."

Her eyes went impossibly wider, "We're friends?"

He nodded, "Of course we are."

She let a sound between a dolphin squeak and seal honk, and made it sound adorable before hugging him, hugging Padma then bolting up the stairs to her room.

Padma laughed, gave Harry hug, their first, before departing almost as quickly as Luna.

But Hermione remained, frowning at him.

"What?" he asked her.

"Why didn't you ask Luna to the Yule Ball? You obviously like her better than Padma," Hermione said with a straightforwardness, that was less a lack of tack and more a burning curiosity for clarity.

Harry sighed, the blunt answer was because he would never want to take advantage of Luna, and though he liked her, he didn't… well, he had a lot of, um, dreams, one would say, of inky silky hair and darkest brown eyes. He did not, nor did he want to, think of Luna like that.

Luna was like a child, like a sister, and Harry wanted nothing from her but a smile.

"Why did accept Viktor Krum's invite if you spend more time with me?" Harry asked.

She frowned at him, "That's different, you and I are just friends, classmates."

"Exactly," he said before turning toward his own room, "Goodnight, Hermione."

"Night, Romanoff."

And Harry wasn't really sure that he would have counted the brilliant young woman among  _his_  friends.

* * *

"Crap! How!? How do you keep doing that!?" Peter exclaimed one morning.

Harry grinned, "Got to follow the rules, Parker."

Peter scuffed his feet, "Real fights aren't restrained to a stupid circle."

"Yeah, but there are a ton of fights that you are going to be restrained to small spaces, or in your world, the tops of trucks, buildings, spaceships-"

"Yeah, yeah," Peter said, taking a stance, and waving Harry forward.

Harry grinned, and two minutes later Peter was doing a spectacular amount of flailing to stay within the lines. But Peter was flexible because of instincts and superpowers, Harry had been brought up learning how to use flexibility as a key weapon, and got Peters feet off balance so he landed in a split over the line.

"Come on!"

Harry laughed, flexibility, the one thing just about anyone could improve. There was always a limit to strength and speed, but flexibility, if you worked at it hard enough, long enough anyone could improve.

"Alright," Mom called it, "Harry needs to get to class, and Peter I have some drills for you that you need to run through. Go do another warm up round, I want you sweating by the time you make it back here."

He saluted her and took off at a speed that Harry thought was drastically unfair.

"Harry," Mom called, "We need to talk."

He turned to her, not exactly worried, but not exactly not worried either. "What did I do?"

She sighed, "Nothing."

They began to walk slowly back toward the castle grounds.

He didn't say anything, knowing she would speak only when she had her words gathered.

"You do not have to keep training with Peter."

He couldn't keep the disappointment off his face, he liked working out with  _the_  Spider-Man. He might have called Luna a friend, and he really liked Padma, but he had never been able to be… to be himself around anyone but Peter and MJ. And Peter was his first work out partner he didn't have to hold back with.

"You think he'll hurt me," he said, defeated.

"No," she said, "I think his supernatural senses help tell him how much to hold back from doing permit damage. And you're both just sparing. Peter has been in enough real fights that I think his control will only continue to grow. I'll be the one sparring with him if he needs to be pushed."

"By 'push' you mean attacking him with magic, don't you?"

Her smile was beautiful as it was dangerous, but then she sobered, "But no, it isn't your safety so much I'm worried about. It's… it's this life style. From all signs, I really doubt aliens are going to invade this Earth, but the type of training Peter needs… you don't."

He stopped, "You don't think I need it? Have you seen these people? The magical world is nuts. How could I not need training?"

She stopped as well, "I'm never going to let you give up training, not so long as you are living with me. But you do have a choice on the more extreme… on…" She sighed, running a hand through her red hair, "Being an Avenger is a lifestyle. Always being ready, always… The Avengers don't exist in this world, they don't need to, but the training you've been on for the last week is the training of a soldier, a spy, or an assassin. You aren't that, Harry, not yet. And you're old enough to decide, or even young enough to wait to decide, if that is the lifestyle you want to pursue. Because no matter what type of career you choose, this training will change you, the way you view the world around you."

Understanding washed over him and he was reminded for the hundredth-thousandth time how lucky he was to be her son.

Because in any other reality, he would never have been given that choice. And not the choice of upping his training, but because of the war he had been born to, been born centre of, he had always been destined to be a soldier, or been destined to be murdered. People had been after him for years, very, very few people could have protected him through all that Black Widow had protected him from.

And protected him in such a way that if he wanted to abandon all physical activity and become a shut in academic, he could have been. It was only his desire to be like her, even in part, that he had pursued Martial Arts and sports as much as he had. She had never forced him to do those things, just started him early, which honestly gave him more opportunities, not less.

"I want this," he stated, "besides, it isn't like I ever had normal supersafe childhood, I doubt my future will be different."

She glared, his mom would have burned down half of Europe if it would have kept him safe, "Don't consider those dunces in this decision. I should have kept you more remo-"

"You mean lie to me? Kept me sheltered? No, Mom, you did everything right."

She raised her brows, "Harry, you're birth parents are still alive."

"And that's great, but they died protecting me once, I died.  _You_  are the one who kept me alive."

"Yes, but if you decide this because of those fanatics, then I didn't save you, it means you're letting others' actions dictate your future. They win."

He shook his head, "You taught me how to defend myself, you kept me safe. But I'm tired of running. I like travelling, and I'll keep travelling when I choose, but I'm done being forced to leave."

"We were partially running away from your parents," she pointed out.

"Well, I don't want to run. I want to be able to do more than defend myself, I want to be able to defend other people. It is the Death Eaters now, and I am  _their_ target, but once they're gone, there will be others and they might not be after me but someone else. Someone else who probably doesn't have a superhero raising them. I still want to be able to defeat the next 'great evil.'" He opened his palms, "I want to be a protector."

She smiled and blinked fast to keep her eyes from tearing, "Like Clint."

 _Exactly_ , like the stories of Clint he had grown up with.

"Like Hawkeye, like my cop parents, like  _you_ , Mom."

She shook her head, "Harry, I-"

"Saved the world, about a hundred times over, and you saved me. Teach me how to save others too. I know you worry about your past, but that was so long ago. Teach me the mistakes you made so I can make my own."

She pulled him into a hug, "I'm so proud of you."

He hugged her back tightly, "I love you."

Her arms tightened around him, and he knew the only reason she didn't say it back was because she was on the verge of tears.

* * *

AN: Thoughts, ideas, remarks, or orcas, I miss orcas, there needs to be more orcas, please?


	16. Only Fate

AN: La- _gasp!_  Another chapter!? Still waiting on those spiders and thank you few for the orcas.

Chapter 16 - Only Fate

* * *

A Segway Between Life and Death

* * *

"Do you ever wonder?" the Death with the sexy hips asked the Death who was pacing the metaphorical space between universes.

"Wonder what?" he snapped, pacing faster.

"If it were possible to destroy a timeline?"

Death with a worry of wizards halted, he turned around slowly, metaphorically speaking, "What?"

She tapped her foot against her scythe, "I just… have this feeling. I feel like, I feel like I have forgotten something, in fact, many things… I keep checking my books… and…"

"And what?" he demanded.

The Death with a titillation of mutants smiled, "The books are blank. I've seen them be rewritten, repeatedly, I've seen them change,  _I've_  changed them, but never before have they gone blank. They are slowly…" Her voice trailed off.

"Slowly what?" Death with a preoccupation with divided souls demanded.

"What?" she asked, looking up, metaphorically speaking.

He made a harsh sound, "Your books are slowly, what?"

"My books?"

"Your books," he growled."What's wrong with your books?"

"Nothing," she said, offended, "Why? What do you know?"

"You just said- You know what, never mind. How could you dump two more of your people in my world? Wasn't it bad enough you brought those two Aurors back? That pest who is so afraid of death is on the brink of finding true immortality! And it is your fault!"

"Oh please, you showed the two redheads their son's would be life. They will figure it out," she said offhandedly, then more sharply, asked, "Wait, what two?"

"The Boy Who Lived's parents!" Death with the greater sense of continuity roared.

"No, no, what two from my world? I only brought over the Lady Spider."

"Yes, you brought the little princess after she died, but now there are also the Man Spider and the little would be tigress."

Death with the overlarge slicing object stared at him blankly, "What?"

Death of the more fantastical magic waved his hand, an image appearing before them of Peter Parker and MJ asleep on the couch, "Them!"

She frowned at them, "No, no, they aren't… they are too old, they haven't died yet. He isn't even a-, they-" A book appeared in her long digited hand.

She opened to the correct chapter.

Blank.

Then flipped to the approximate age of the boy.

Blank.

She flipped to the end of Peter Parker's book.

"Fuck," said the Death who knew all too well what the Infinity Stones were capable of.

The Death whose butt cheeks had been clenched tight ever since they broke the laws of Life and Death so dramatically, leaned over her shoulder, avoiding her scythe to peer at the page, then laughed.

"This isn't funny! We were played!"

Death whose sense of rightness had corrected itself, chortled into the space between, metaphorically speaking, that is.

* * *

Saturday seemed to come quickly that week. Harry much preferred having the addition of MJ, even if she was a bit withdrawn, he felt less like a misfit with her around.

Unlike him, who played it cool and pretended to be sociable even though he didn't overly enjoy socializing, MJ was cool and didn't pretend to be anything then what she was.

If people gave her shit, she either didn't acknowledge their existence or had them tied up in their own words with the effort of someone folding a napkin.

But Saturday he didn't have the buffer of MJ to deal with his parents. People he was beginning to truly like, and yet…

And yet he found himself dragging his feet, walking back with Padma and Hermione to the dorm rather than the room Lily was waiting to start his potions lesson with.

"Are you even paying attention?" Hermione snapped.

He gave her a look.

"He's thinking about his mum and dad," Padma supplied. "How's that going by the way?"

He shrugged, "Fine."

"Fine," she mocked, "right, that sounded sooo believable."

He raised a brow, "Are you calling me a liar?"

"Ha," she said, raising her chin, "You lie like you breathe."

He put his hand to his heart, leaning back against the railing at the platform of one of the moving staircases. "Padma," he said dramatically, he placed a hand on the rail as if catching his balance against a blow, "You wound me."

Then he flipped himself backward over the railing.

Padma screamed.

Several other students screamed.

Harry stuck the landing, coming to his feet in a swirl of robes.

Padma was leaning over the railing to see him, her expression morphing from fear to rage in a heartbeat.

It had only been one flight.

She swore at him in Hindi, something that had her twin, Parvati, exclaiming, "Padma!" from an upper level.

But Harry laughed and blew her a kiss, and went to go see his birth mother wearing a self-satisfied smirk.

He was pretty sure Padma would get him back for that.

He found that he was rather looking forward to it.

* * *

Lily was pretty sure they had it.

"Happy thoughts?" Harry asked, "Like Peter Pan?"

Lily grinned at him, "Just so."

James cast the spell wordlessly, his doe prancing merrily around the hopping gracefully, then less gracelessly kicking its back feet into the air.

Lily spoke the Charm for Natasha's and Harry's sake, her stag charging down the doe that darted up, then circled around them.

"Okay," Harry said, "that's cool, not very stealthy, but very cool."

Harry raised turned his wrist, his bracelet transforming into an intricately carved staff with metal inlay, that was longer than he was tall.

It was an impressive weapon, though, she added mentally, not a stealth object.

He waited, and it took Lily a moment to realize that he was waiting for Natasha to try first. His respect for her evident in almost all that he did.

Merlin, Lily hated being jealous of the other woman. She wanted to forget she existed. But when she glanced at James who teasingly wagged his eyebrows at her, she blushed.

It took Natasha two tries, and where Lily had expected to see a spider, what appeared in silver blue was nothing so small.

A large Siberian tiger roared out of her wand, then playfully chased around the two deer patronuses.

Natasha's smile was breathtaking, "My favourite animal."

Harry huffed a laugh, "Also my favourite toy plushie when I was little."

She grinned at him, "You cried yourself to sleep that night one of the Death Eaters blasted a hole through it. I had to take you back to Russia and track down the company, which turned out to be a little shop owner in a small town, hours outside of St. Petersburg, who had a vender's cart during the holidays, to get you one that was; тот самый."

She made Russian sound sexy, damn her, Lily noted.

Harry grinned and teased back in a stream of Russian that sounded oddly beautiful, almost as beautiful of the sound of his laughter at Natasha's presumably witty comeback.

And with that laughter still on his lip, he twirled his staff like he had wielded such a thing all his life, and maybe he had.

An elegant crane spread large wings, gliding elegantly around the deer and the tiger.

"A crane," James said with a smile, because how could you not smile at a fourteen year old performing such a spell so effortlessly with a creature whose natural elegance was further enhanced with magic.

"A Siberian Crane," Harry corrected, "My favourite animal, they're endangered in Russia. Mum and I created a foundation for them and got them listed as protected animals."

"That's wonderful," Lily said, meaning it, even if her heart still hurt at yet another thing she had missed in her son's life.

"So what's next on the agenda?" he asked, not in the least fazed by learning one of the most difficult spells in there world.

James coughed, "Well, we had a request."

Natasha narrowed her eyes, "What?"

And Lily liked her a bit better for her protectiveness, or maybe that was just because she knew what they might be facing. "Natasha, you know the dream we shared?"

"Yes?" she asked, warning in her tone.

"We think we know where the snake is."

"Wait, you shared a dream, and what about a snake?" Harry asked.

Lily looked at him and wondered how he would take this, "We had a dream about you slaying a giant serpent."

Harry blinked at her and his response was not what she had expected, "But I like snakes."

Before she could respond, Natasha said in a perfectly reasonable tone without the slightest indication she would change her mind on the subject, "He won't be doing that again."

"He won't need to," James said, "I just need to transfigure some roosters and light to make them squawk, then bam, dead Basilisk."

"I'm completely lost," Harry said.

"We just need to take a tour down the second floor," James answered pleasantly.

"Why?" he asked, sounding a suspicious as Natasha.

"Why, to talk to a ghost, of course."

* * *

Harry could tell Mom was unhappy, and his parents were not doing much better.

But it appeared the three adults had at least one thing in common: curiosity.

Moaning Myrtle, as he was informed people called her, was a wailing ghost who appeared to spend a great deal of time in a toilet.

When his dad asked her how she had died, she moaned with delight which creeped Harry out more than the Bloody Baron ever had.

"I saw something come out of there," she pointed to the sinks, then said almost gleefully, "And then I diiiieed."

Harry wanted away from this strange phantom who was eyeing him up hungerly. He wondered if you could kill ghosts, maybe exorcism?

The four of them searched the sinks and he was the one to find the tiny snake image.

"Salazar Slytherin had a thing for snakes, huh?" he asked.

"He could talk to them," his dad said distastefully.

Harry looked at him, "I mean, so can I, but I don't go around marking my turf with snake insignias everywhere."

His mouth dropped open along with Lily's, they asked in unison, "You can talk to snakes?"

Mom put her hands on her hips, "Is there a problem?"

The Aurors exchanged looks, and his dad recovered first, "No, it's just extremely rare in our world."

"How rare?" he asked.

"As in, there is only one person known in our history who was born with that magical gift not connected to Salazar Slytherin's line."

Which gave Harry an idea, and he hissed at the little snake on the sink, " _Open."_

He stepped back as the sinks moved.

"Nifty," Mom said.

Harry chuckled, both at his mom and his parents who were slightly wide eyed at the new information revealed to them.

"How are we going to scope out what's done there?" Mom asked.

Lily stepped forward and was sliding down into the darkness before anyone could stop her.

Mom sighed, "So that's where you get it from."

A moment later, Lily called up, "Clear."

James was next, but before Harry could follow, Natasha tied a blindfold around his face.

"You think it's awake?" he asked, not protesting after what the Potters had explained to them about the 'big snake.'

"I think you can practice walking in darkness."

And they slid down the slide together.

He felt what most have been the small bones of rats crunch beneath his boots. Having practised fighting in the dark, and fighting with the blindfold before. He was able to follow his mother's footsteps, which she deliberately let fall audibly against the stone floor, scuffing her foot against any lips of elevation or loose stones.

"How are you walking without holding onto anything?" Lily asked.

Harry smiled, but didn't turn to face her, keeping his focus on Mom's movements. "Training," he answered.

"What kind of training?" James asked.

"The kind that has kept him alive," Mom said smoothly, "Harry, there's a door with stone snakes."

He walked to her side, and hissed, " _Open."_

He heard his dad mutter, "That's somehow less menacing."

"Less menacing than what?" Harry asked as the door creaked open.

"Our accents," Mom said in Russian.

Harry rolled his eyes under the blindfold.

"And people say Godric had an ego problem."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, fighting the impulse to rip off his blindfold.

"Giant statues of Slytherin everywhere," Mom supplied.

"No, snake?" he asked, not really liking the idea of killing it, but then he supposed anything that could be killed with a rooster squawk was not exactly a naturally born creature.

No one said anything.

"Now what?" Harry asked after a time.

"There must be another chamber," Lily said, "Or else it would have kept travelling throughout the pipes."

Harry began hissing out greetings.

And after a time, he heard something, he pointed toward the sound, "There."

" _Master?"_ a deep, base hiss, thrummed through the walls, " _Master, have you returned for me?"_

" _How do I free you?"_ Harry hissed back.

" _Don't you remember?"_ It asked, sounding equal parts confused and suspicious.

Well, sound, wasn't the right word, it was more a sense, because this thing sounded like no serpent Harry had ever heard before.

" _Remind me. I am your Master, but the years are long and my memory is not what it once was,"_  He lied.

" _Master! Master!"_ It cried, the earth below their feet trembled as it seemed to shift its great form and throw itself at the wall keeping it trapped. It began ranting, raving, crying words of ritualistic nature, claiming to be the Heir of Salazar.

Which is when Harry realized it was speaking the words that would release it, and he suddenly didn't feel so bad for being a part of this thing's death.

It was mad, it was starving, and it was imprisoned in a state that seemed to Harry to be far worse than death.

Harry motioned with his hand. Mom led him back against a wall, and presumably warned the Potters, his dad ready with the birds.

He hissed the magic words, the snake cried, " _Master!"_

Harry's heart broke as he listened to its scales and muscles slide against the stones, filling the echoing chamber, the first rooster crooked.

And the Basilisk screamed, a wail of death, its last word, " _Master!"_

Was a scream of betrayal.

Harry had killed people before, but this was the first time he had sought someone out to kill them, proactive or no.

He suddenly got what Mom had been attempting to explain to him.

But when he removed his blindfold and saw what had been set to hunt children in a school, he decided that he had made the right choice.

* * *

They all went out for dinner and Hogsmeade to celebrate, Natasha said she needed to stop at her apartment first.

Her apartment who's windows lit up with an explosion of light, shortly followed by one being thrown open to let out a plume of smoke.

"Right, stay here," Natasha said, disapparating with a pop.

"She has a roommate?" James asked his son, explosions not being all that uncommon in their world.

"Um, well, sort of," Harry answered as Natasha apparated back with two figures to either side of her.

Both had hair as wild as his and Harry's, though not genetically, more from having something blown up near them in a small space.

"Dad, Lily, this is Michelle Jones and Peter Parker," Harry introduced. "MJ, Peter, these are my birth parents, James and Lily Potter. They're wizard cops."

The lanky girl pulled her hair back, looking irked as Natasha passed her a hair tie.

Peter, who looked absolutely nothing like Pettigrew, with a physique under his tight muggle clothes that would have done an Olympic athlete proud, said, "Hi." Then turned to Natasha, "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't toxic gas," was all she said as if to say that the rest was fine.

"Peter," the girl said in a low voice, "If you don't warn me about future hair destroying experiments I'm going to turn you into a toad."

He blinked at her, "Can you do that?" He looked at the rest of them, "You guys can't really do that? Can you? Mr. Strange couldn't."

Natasha smiled, "Oh, our magic can definitely accomplish it, eventually."

Harry smiled at him, "Dad could probably do it now, couldn't you?"

James smiled a little uncertainly, "A toad, hmm, yes, I could, but where's the fun in that? I am partial to turning people into a platypus or even a whale, if I'm feeling particular."

Peter paled, his eyes going wide as he stared at the people around him.

Natasha patted him on the back, "I think it would be best if you treat all spells as things to be avoided."

He gulped, "Noted."

And James noted that both were Americans not Russians.

"So," Lily said, searching for a polite way to ask, then came out with it, seeing as neither child had the same surname nor seemed to be related in any outward way. Peter seemed to be a muggle if his apprehension to magic was anything to go by. "You're staying with Natasha?"

"Ms. Romanoff saved us," Peter said, "were, um…"

"Harry's step-sister and brother," Michelle said blandly.

Harry grinned at her like it was something they had recently agreed on.

Lily turned on Natasha, "How did you not mention having other children?"

"It's kind of recent," Peter supplied helpfully, "Course, I'm not magic so Ms. Romanoff is homeschooling me while MJ goes to Hogwarts."

Lily blinked at him, "How recent and what happened to you parents are?" she left it open ended.

"Dead," he said.

"Who the hell cares, Black Widow's our guardian, can we go get food now?" MJ asked, clearly not liking the way Lily was scrutinizing them.

"Black Widow?" James asked, he had known Natasha was a widow, but that sounded like a title or code name.

"Let's eat," Natasha said with a smile directing them all toward the inn.

They all troped toward the promise of food as Harry began to tell Peter about the Chamber of Secrets and the Basilisk, MJ listening with a disinterested expression.

But her question was pretty cutting, "So you're saying that the founder of my house didn't just not like people whose parents were non-magical but actively wanted to feed children to giant snakes? That's swell."

It was said so blandly, James couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

"Her parents were not magical and she was sorted into Slytherin," Natasha filled in as she, he, and Lily trailed behind the younger ones a bit.

"Are their guardians really gone or did you kidnap them too?" Lily said in a low voice, but the girl heard her.

She spun on her heel and walked backwards with a hand on Peter's shoulder to keep her balance. "Not that you deserve to know, but as your Harry's family, I'll say this, Peter is an orphan but his Aunt May isn't dead and neither is my family, but Natasha wasn't the one to kidnap us."

Lily glared at Natasha, "What, just like Death gave you Harry?"

"Actually," Peter said over his shoulder, "It wasn't Death, it was a stone, not really a stone, but a liquid, magical thingy that acted on its own and dropped us here. Now MJ's a witch and I'm, well still me, but that's not the point. Ms. Romanoff didn't do anything wrong. She took us in."

Even for magical folk, James thought, they sound nuts.

But Natasha's expression said that she thought the boy had shared too much.

"What is going on?" Lily asked.

Harry laughed, confusing James, what was funny about this?

Natasha shook her head, "I'll explain later. It's… in order for you to understand, it's a long story."

"We have time," Lily said.

She shook her head again, "You are coming with us on vacation to Russia, we will have time then. For now, let's eat"

oOo

When they were all seated in a large booth, MJ said, "I'm not sold on travelling. It didn't go so well last time."

"I wasn't with you last time," Natasha said.

Peter chimed in, "I would be cool to stay with MJ here for the holiday."

Natasha smiled at them, and it was the same expression James's mother had used on him and Sirius when they had innocently asked for something they planned to use for trouble.

And her words came out in the same tone, "I'm not leaving you two alone."

"We're old enough to watch out for ourselves," MJ said, not looking up from the menu.

James was suddenly glad Lily had decided against having more children. Harry was, well just getting through to Harry was a challenge, he couldn't imagine looking after a teenage daughter who had just been displaced from her family.

Peter nodded vigorously, "I can definitely be left alone." There was more to what he said aloud, something he knew Natasha already knew.

But her smile only brightened, "I'm sure you can be, but the problem is not leaving you alone, it is leaving you alone together. Besides, you're not ready for the magical assassins."

"I thought they wanted Harry? Not us," MJ pointed out, "And what's wrong with leaving us together?"

Yep, James was very glad he wasn't Natasha in that moment, because he, and likely everyone at this table knew why leaving two teens alone, who were obviously dating -Peter sitting shoulder to shoulder with her- was a terrible idea. Or at least not something a guardian would want if they were the guardian of them both.

"The assassins could go after anyone with any relation to Harry, and I'm not leaving you alone because in some even slightly plausible future I have to face your families like I had to meet Harry's, I will do so having raised you both to the best of my abilities."

"We're sixteen, only two years away from being adults," MJ said, setting down her menu and meeting Natasha's gaze without the slightest flinching.

"Yes, but you also had your entire world ripped out from underneath you, given magic, and dumped in a new country, along with a thousand other little things. Give yourself time to adjust before trying to be an adult."

"I'm mature."

"I know that, but until you are of legal age, I will be around to supervise your mistakes."

"Gee, thanks."

And though the girl hid it well, James could see some of the pain she was burdened with.

"What happened the last time you travelled?" Lily asked.

MJ's dark eyes slid to her, and she said, "Europe is overrated."

Peter snorted into his butterbeer the waiter had just handed him.

Great, James thought, more secrets.

* * *

"She's infuriating," Lily muttered as Kingsley, Amelia, Frank, and Alice came in, each with a stack of files in their arms.

James sighed, "She's also a good person."

"Who would choose to go by Black Widow? Isn't that a poisonous spider?" She paused, "Scratch that, it fits her perfectly."

"What precisely are we looking for, on a Saturday night for that matter?" Kingsley asked, placing his stack on the table. Not that Kingsley cared about weekends. None of them did except for the Longbottoms when Neville was home for the holidays.

Nymphadora entered the room, noticeably so as she tripped over her own feet and crashed into Sirius in front of her. They both went down in a heap, papers flying everywhere.

Sirius laugh-barked on the floor, pulling his wand, the papers flying back into order.

James pulled an old newspaper picture he had found of a little boy, "Tom M. Riddle. He received a scholarship to Hogwarts, recruited by Albus Dumbledore in 1938." He pinned it to the board behind him. "Likely a parselmouth who opened the Chamber of Secrets in 1943, causing the death by Basilisk of a young girl Myrtle Warren, age 14. A crime Rubeus Hagrid was wrongfully suspected of causing and expelled for. We need to know everything about him."

Nymphadora frowned at the board, "A parselmouth, a parselmouth, does anyone else feel like we're missing something obvious? I've been thinking about it all week and I just can't put my finger on it.

Amelia flipped open a file, knowing the organization of these files -if not their exact contents- better than anyone, to an almost unhealthy degree.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle, half-blood," she said, reading off a page she had found, pulling it from halfway through the stack, she pinned it to the board, "Lived in an orphanage, Wool's Orphanage, muggle London."

"Marvolo," Sirius repeated, then his eyes widened, "Marvolo Gaunt, the last known relative of Salazar Slytherin."

"It would explain the parselmouth," James said, not liking that there was none for Harry's ability.

"Nymphadora is right, we are missing something," Kingsley mused, his deep voice rumbling through the room.

Her hair turned red, "My name is Tonks, don't call me Nymphadora."

They all ignored her as the rest of them glared at their board.

Their board that they had basically turned around the safety and the standard of living in the Magical UK.

Amelia sighed, and began flipping through more files, "We will know after our research. I suppose the next logical question would be to ask what he did after he left Hogwarts?"

"Hagrid said he applied to the DADA position but Dumbledore turned him done."

Frank snorted, "That seems unlikely. He must have been terrible for Dumbledore to turn him down."

Alice nodded, "The positions cursed, nobody can last longer than a year, if they are lucky."

James was looking out at the stacks of papers so he saw when Kingsley's face went slack. He said slowly, "Unless it was before the position was cursed. The date…"

James looked back at the picture and thought of all the older wizards he knew who were wicked enough to actually release a Basilisk on a school of hapless children.

Lily grabbed his hand as the truth dawned at him, as he imagined the little black and white figure of a boy in the newspaper smiling at him with red eyes.

The room seemed to come to the same conclusions unanimously.

"Well, I guess we know why he changed his name, Tommy-Boy just doesn't sound Dark Lordy enough," Sirius said cheerfully.

Nymphadora sat down on the floor, missing the chair completely, but she didn't seem to mind, she looked numbly at the board as they all were, and she stated, "We found Voldemort."

They had.

And more than that, they had found the boy behind the monster.

Now it was only a matter of time before the uprooted all of his secrets.

James Potter smiled, a baring of teeth, Tom Riddle had thrown his world into war, had murdered him, his wife, and his son.

It was only fate that they were somehow still alive, it was only fate that he would ensure that every last vestige of Tom Marvolo Riddle would die.

* * *

AN: Comments, reactions, suggestions, tigers, or cranes, pretty, pretty please? Much love to the reviewers~


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